The Sentience Of Selene
by A Man of No Consequence
Summary: An ancient order of girls is led by the Moon goddess. Unlike the Hunters of Artemis, the Sentinels of Selene have some very different goals and rules. The Sentinels have seen to preserving the integrity of the Mist since six millennia. With the end of 2005, a new female Sentinel is introduced as has been tradition since Time began. Only this time, the female Sentinel is a... boy?
1. Siproites, The Brave and Mighty

**_Author's Note_****_: _****This is first fic on this website guys so please read and tell me what changes I could make. My main character will be a twist on the usual Fem!male. I think that it's original but if someone else managed to claim this idea before I could, please send me their profile so I can see if its the same as what I have planned for the future. I am currently in the process of writing the second chapter. I won't claim any regular update schedule unless this story picks up or I get some people who are genuinely interested in it. That's All! Enjoy.**

**_DISCLAIMER: _I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, neither do I claim to. Slavery is bad and great human beings like Percy should never be considered the property of anyone. Some of the more useless Olympians on the other hand... I'm sure Uncle Rick wouldn't mind if some "accident" befell them.**

* * *

**_Ever Heard of Siproites?_**

* * *

_AN EXCERPT FOUND IN A TRASH CAN NEAR A BEACH. THE FOLLOWING WORDS WERE WRITTEN ON A PIECE OF SHEEPSKIN THAT GLOWED GOLD WHEN HELD UNDER SUNLIGHT: _

_Look, I didn't want to be a half-immortal meditating a parlay between a hot-blooded daughter of Ares and another half-immortal demigod being prepared to host the spirit of a Titan Lord... But here I am. So if you are reading this, it means that you are like me. A human with some amount of godly blood in them. You have two choices before you: Join me and my kin in New York where we save the known human world from a mad titan. Or close this book, burn it in liquid fire, and bury the ashes in a lead-lined box... And hope beyond everything else that the mad titan lord doesn't find you. Cause if they do..._

* * *

_Date:26_

_th__ January 200__9_

_Location: Undisclosed _

_Time: 0000 hrs_

The dark reminded Misty of the Labyrinth and the 7 Rabbits of Apocalypse and she internally shuddered at their thought. She focused herself on the room again and started debating whether what stood in front of her was in any way preferable to what stood down below. In front of her sat Luke Castellan, blonde hair neatly combed back, while behind Luke, with a hand on each shoulder, stood a man 7 meters tall with a heavily scarred face, wearing a black tuxedo. Prometheus.

A soft squeeze on her shoulder assured her of her companions, for whom, though she would never admit it, she was grateful. On her left sat Clarisse La Rue, red war armour on her body and her helmet by her feet, and on her right sat a _naiad_, garbed in battle armour with a two-sided axe in hand.

Both sides sat (or stood in the case of Prometheus) in their places quietly, taking the lapse as an opportunity to measure their opponents. They were there for the same thing. However, both parties had already decided to go after it their separate ways.

"If you are done with the pointless glaring, can we start?" said Prometheus.

"Who said it is pointless? For all you know, we could be laying down a curse upon your armies while you are here..." Clarrise said.

"What's stopping me from doing the same right now? Unlike you, we actually have immortals who are very much enthusiastic when it comes to helping with the war. Last I checked, the gods were busy playing tag," Luke replied.

"Down boy," Prometheus said with a good-natured smirk, "if the young fools want to play a game, then they are more than welcome to. But in their own time. For now, let us discuss what we came here for. If you could _initiate_ Lady Mystery?"

" Ladies, gentleman... and Immortals, this truce has been called upon on Lord Prometheus' behalf. He wishes to pass along a message to the Half-Blood faction. He has sworn upon his _blood_, his _domain _and his_ bones_ that we shall not be harmed by him or his, in any way physical, psychological or spiritual, so long as we don't do the same to them for the duration of this meeting. It has been agreed upon that after both parties have concluded this meeting, each of us shall return to our respective bases. No side will attack the other for an hour or a distance of 500 yards, whichever comes first. Although my duties as Sentinel force me to be the mediator of this parley and inflict a soul binding upon all who break the terms of engagement, regardless of their side, I still side with the demigods. Therefore, I vow upon the soul of Lady Selene and her magic that shall any conflict arise which forces me to punish a demigod responsible, I shall do it. However, I shall still hold my right to stand as both, a warrior for Camp Half-Blood, and the Mediator," She nodded towards Luke, "Begin."

Luke stood from his chair, forcing Prometheus to remove his hands from his shoulder, and said, "I am asking you to see reason, Clarisse. The army of the Titans grows stronger from the hordes of Tartarus each day. There is only so much resistance you can put up. What do you think will happen if you keep fighting us day by day? For every demigod our Minotaur kills, you shall have to slay 20. For every lamia you manage to kill, we shall have 10 more to take its place. For every barricade you create, we will destroy a 100 more. This war has come down to a battle of attrition. The gods are busy playing tag with Typhon on the other side of the world while our Titan overlords still stand strong to fight alongside us. These gods are the same ones who abandoned you to living a life of terror and conflict. They still don't come to help you even when they need of you. Surrender now, no more demigods need to die. The Titans are kind. All Kronos asks for is your submission. He shall see to it that no harm comes to you. All you shall have to do is bend the knee to him and we could all get through this unscathed. What happened to Percy should not happen to you too-"

"Enough!" screamed Clarisse. She had been sitting quietly with her arms folded but upon hearing Percy, she suddenly blew like... '_Like a geyser' thought Mystery sorrowfully._

" If that is all you have come here to say, you can go. We are not going to give up. We have all seen what Kronos wants and how he achieves it. Do you really think that he will offer us the luxury of mercy when we have already cost him so much," She raised a hand and stopped him from interrupting. " Even if we were to assume that he would not harm us, why should we surrender? We know what plans he has for his dear _grandchildren,_" spat Clarisse. " He will make us all his slaves and turn Civilisation to dust the first chance he gets. He doesn't care about our welfare and happiness. He won't see us as separate beings from civilisation. I grew up fighting for what I wanted. Be it my freedom, the position of Head Counsellor, respect or even my Life! We did not bow before we started this war and we are SURE AS HADES not gonna bow now."

"But think about Percy! Think of what happened to him today. How many more Percy's do you want to happen before you give up on this blasted war!" screamed Luke.

"Don't you dare take his name now! Because parley or not, I won't hesitate in sending you where Percy went if you dare to use him for your cause. He lived on his terms and he _died _on his terms. He died as a hero should. HE DIED WHEN YOU SHOULD'VE. Don't you dare defile his memory and mention him by your dirty Fury-Pox marked mouth!" said Clarrise, her eyes looking close to overflowing with tears.

" That's enough Clarisse." The naiad said, placing a hand on her shoulder. " _WE_ are not here to start another war. But regardless of her words, her statement stands true. If you have nothing more to say, other than your weak persuasion techniques that is, then I suggest that you leave now and not waste our precious sleep. What happens to the demigods stopped being your responsibility when you sided with the tyrant who killed your brother and best friend."

Luke himself looked like he was on the verge of breaking but thankfully, or unfortunately for the demigods, Prometheus stopped him before he could attack the Naiad-with-the-silver-tongue.

"Ladies, please. I beg you to see reason. All we are here for is to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. Every drop of demigod bloodshed is a drop of demigod blood wasted. We could be heartless tyrants on our bad days, but we still care about our grandchildren. We don't want to see them die any more than you do." Prometheus said in his silk-smooth voice.

"_IF_ that is all," began Mystery with an ice-cold stare directed at the two males " then this meeting should end."

" Just one more thing," said Prometheus. He walked around the chair on which Luke sat and waved his hands around in the air in sharp jerky movements, as if trying to swat a fly, and on the empty seat, a golden urn materialised out of thin air. He tapped the lid twice and it grew into a three feet tall greek vase. It had various shapes and designs inscribed on its fine white surface with black ink. "This is Pandora's Pithos. It still contains one spirit inside it. I'm sure all of you know your history and hence I won't bore you with it. What matters is that if you feel like surrendering, you must open the lid and release _Elpis_. We will understand that you have surrendered and we will command the monsters to not harm you any more. Farewell." With his last words said, Prometheus sauntered out of the cabin, leaving the vase and 4 conflicted people inside.

"I know about the camp," Luke said tersely, staring after the retreating silhouette of Prometheus.

"What?"

"The morale, the crying, the shrouds... I know of it."

Clarisse stared hard into his eyes. Luke stared right back.

"So the reports of a spy were true. There was _someone_ who sold Percy out to you." Clarrise spat out. The word 'someone' held enough venom to neutralize Kampe's Scimitars _after_ they were dipped in centaur blood and chimaera spit.

Luke directed an affirmative by inclining his head towards her in a nod. Mystery watching all of this with the quiet presence of a peacekeeper suddenly started shaking at the shoulders and suppressing her laughter. After another moment it looked like she could take no more and she promptly fell off her chair while laughing. Clarisse made a show of rolling her eyes at her friend's antics and swore profusely at her.

Between fits of her laughter, Mystery finally gained some of her composure back and looked at Luke. Looking him in the eye, she removed a talisman she attached to her uniform and, before the eyes of the two demigods and the naiad, she turned into a boy.

With her previous neatly combed hair shrinking to a shorter yet wilder cut, her features sharpened somewhat and certain areas... _flattened_ so to speak. In the blink of an eye, the silver-clad buxom beauty Mystery turned to the annoying form of the camp trickster Mist. The same Mist who had dutifully delivered secret missives and camp strategies to Luke. The same Mist who had gained the trust and love of the camper with his attitude and secured a position on the war council so that he could pass on information to the Titans.

"You never saw this coming did you?" was all that a smirking Clarisse said to Luke.

Luke nodded.

* * *

**_Five books and an odd month ago..._**

A girl kicks at a pillow tied up to a pillar inside a house in Nassau. After 3 more kicks, she steps back and uses a towel to wipe the sweat off of her forehead. She throws the towel on her bedside table. Inside the table, one would find last months test results. All of them with scores above 90%. Upon the table are photos of the girl framed in a wooden frame. In front of a wild bull running right at her while she waved a red cloth at it, a sweater-clad and younger variation of her standing on a mountain peak along with three other girls, a photo of her mid-jump right from the top of a waterfall, and more which show us that she has lived her life to the fullest. This girl is not a girl, but a woman.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) her brother was in the next room. Forever, known to society as _her brother, _he was more than ready to leave behind the shadow of her elder sister and find something out of which he could carve out his name. He was more than ready to go out and fight the world and help the weak and sleep with damsels he rescued and teach kids how to punch their tormentors and look fear in the eye, only to tell it to Fuck Off. However, that is rather hard to do when you are a 14-year-old Indian boy who has trouble finding his way around the block. Saving maidens and punching the villain in his ugly mug was better left to the characters in the books that lined his walls, lied on his bed and in his school bag. And also on his study table and some on the floor (but those are just Chemistry textbooks). As much as he fantasized about going out there like his sister, he was more worried about what would happen to Excalibur falling into the hands of the Dark Sorceror Orochimaru. As much as he wanted to climb mountains and click a pic of those elusive snow leopards, he was too lazy to do more than the bare minimum in a world that did not have Narnia inside every single cabinet. He knew that if he tried, he could ace the tests and grab himself some fame – which though not in the way he wanted, was still fame – but he was too busy–

"TUSHAR! Take out the trash, you lazy child!"– taking out the trash.

Sighing to himself, he bookmarked the page and stood to go down before his mother shouted again – if there was anything louder than a rocket during lift-off, it was his mother. He took the back door out of the house, carrying the trash bags along with his broken life. The only reason why he never wasted time in taking the trash out was that it was probably the only way he might've been able to help in saving the planet. That and the fact that most mystery and fiction books started when the main character went to throw the trash away. But nobody was going to hear that excuse.

He walked to the corner and threw the heavy black bags inside the big green bin that sat there. Standing at the corner, hoping that a Pegasus might land anytime to take him to Adventure Land, he looked at the stars. Unfortunately, living in such a busy part of the continent meant that there were no stars to be seen in the night sky. So, Tushar satisfied himself by searching for the moon. On a New Moon night. Damn his luck!

It was ten minutes later that Tushar came back home. Coming in through the backyard, he made his way inside and sneaked up the stairs for a last peek at the chapter before his family, who were already sitting around the dining table waiting for him, could capture him. Luckily for him, he made his way upstairs before anyone heard him. Unluckily, he heard some noises coming from his sister's room.

Now, coming from a typical Indian family which lived, for the better part of his life, in India, there was little to no privacy in their lives. Locking doors when not changing clothes was questionable, having passwords on your phone or computer was a crime, and trying to go out with friends without dropping every single minutia of the plan was a capital offence. A death sentence if the group of friends contained anyone of the opposite gender who has not been introduced before as a platonic friend. So worrying about the places to punch in case of a thief, or the place where he might hide the potential reward (*cough* Extortion Money *cough*) in case of a secret boyfriend visiting his sister at this late hour, he marched in.

Imagine his surprise when there was no one in the room. At least he thought it was no one. Because the moment he turned his back, a body suddenly materialised _on_ him and held him against the floor. He thought of thrusting back his elbow to strike the assailant in the face when he noticed certain _anatomical extensions_ that poked his back. Turning around from his uncomfortable position, he realised that his assailant was not only female but also an _unconscious _female.

Forgetting about his earlier plans of extorting money from his sister, he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Mom! Dad! Help! Ros' girlfriend is trying to kill me!"

Two sets of feet raced up the stairs while Tushar tried in vain to push the heavy body on him away. Alas, his frail bones were not up to the challenge. The door was already open and when his sister Ros and his father arrived upstairs, they were shocked to see a girl, barely any older than Ros, lying on top of him. The father pulled her off of his son while Ros screamed to her mother to call the ambulance too.

"Aarushi who is this girl? Your brother is not joking this time... you said you did not have a girlfriend. And look at her, she's unconscious too," her father asked.

Aarushi, being the level headed person that she was, ignored the consequences of his brother's minor taunt, who stood in the corner confused as hell what was happening, and stepped into the bathroom to get some water. She opened the window and sprinkled water on the girl's face.

The girl refused to stir.

She checked her wrist for a pulse and found a weak one.

But before she could step away from her, the girl suddenly gasped awake and held onto Ros' wrist. Ros looked wide-eyed at the now conscious woman sprawled on the floor of her room and felt the strength of her grip.

"Take it! Take the Sentience! You must be the Sentinel. Warn the others... the old one is stirring. Tell Lady Moon to awaken the council. You must save them." The girl thrust a medallion of sorts that hung on her neck into Ros' open palm and proceeded to faint again.

The room ceased all action as the girl faded from consciousness again. Before anyone could say anything, Tushar spoke, " You've got a quest, Ros. That's awesome."

Giving his brother a sharp glare that told him perfectly what he thought of his antics, she stood from her crouching position and walked towards the door. She thrust the medallion at her brother's chest, who was pushed back a few steps by the force of her palm and walked away. "Look after her here. I'll go talk to Mom. The ambulance must be here soon. And for the love of God, don't stare at her Shu."

"I'll go with her and send your mother up. You go wait in your room, we'll talk about this later," his father said before walking out the same way as his sister.

None noticed in their hurry that the medallion was stuck to Tushar's chest and did not fall when he removed his hands from it. It glowed silver for a moment as soon as his father left and a voice spoke inside Tushar's mind: _Prepare to teleport to Lady Moon._

All Tushar could say before he was taken away to the _Lady Moon_ was

"And now it begins."

* * *

"_No! Now it ends._" spat Lady Moon

"Come on! Just give me a chance. I'll be a great Sentinel," whined Tushar. It had been thirty minutes since he was whisked away to a secret lair in the middle of nowhere to become a _Sentinel_. He had met Lady Moon or rather Selene, as she preferred to be called, who congratulated him on being the first mortal man to step into her resting place in five millennia. She had been quite pleased with him and was also willing to fulfil his boon when she noticed the medallion stuck to his chest.

"Wait a moment! Where did you get that medallion?" asked the silver-haired woman. Her mind was getting wilder every second at the meaning of this revelation and what happened to the last person who wore it. " Where's the girl who had it? Why did she give it to you?"

"I don't know to be honest," replied Tushar. While he woke up every day expecting to be invited on his quest any moment, most of it was just wishful thinking. He initially believed that the words _'Prepare to teleport' _was just another figment of his imagination... probably his mind reacting to the medallion sticking to his body because of some glue or something. When he got sucked through what felt like water and then resurfaced on the other side, his brain crashed and he resorted to processing the new information at the speed of 1 fact/sec. It also did not help that the cavern that he stood in now, looked very much like the base of some ancient wizard. The walls were all of some grey rock, but there were natural skylights in the cavern ceiling, which let the starlight illuminate it. The walls were filled with small shiny stones that glowed like the stars above in the sky. There were wooden shelves against some walls, containing books bound in leather and stray pieces of long parchment lay scattered on the various tables nearby. Another section of the cavern was full of mysterious plants grown in neat rows classified by the colour of their leaves and most of them glowed in the darkness of the night. All his questions were left unanswered as the previously soft and kind Selene turned to an angry_ Lady Moon._

"Answer me you fool! The fate of the world depends on this!"

"I'm saying the truth, Lady Selene. An unconscious girl gave it to my sister who passed it off to me." Tushar sweated under the glare of the woman which gave no sign of being calmed by his explanations. " My sister passed it off to me before she went down to call an ambulance. This thing then stuck to my chest and teleported me here. I don't know anything more than that."

"What about the unconscious girl? What happened to the Sentinel?" she all but screamed in his face.

"I- I don't know. She was.. um kind of unconscious when I last saw her. She looked fine but her after handing over the medallion to my sister, she... fainted again. We had called for an ambulance. She'll be fine in.. by now."

Selene stared at the boy hard enough that were it not for the bones in his body, he would be a puddle on the floor. She finally heaved a sigh and rubbed a hand at her forehead. She took another look at the boy from under her fingers and covered her eyes again. She looked up at the sky almost as if asking it: 'Why me?'. She walked over to a part of the cavern which had crystal balls hanging in the air, suspended by blue strings that shined in the starlight.

_Find Marina_ she whispered into one crystal ball, which glowed white for some moments before turning a dark black. Lady Selene looked disheartened by that, which could've only meant one thing...

* * *

Two hours later, a door opened in the north wall of the underground lair. Tushar had spent the last two lours pacing around the room, his heart weighed down with worry for his life. He also thought about explaining to his parents why he wasn't in his room as he had been asked to do, but he side-tracked that thought with worries about what might happen to his newly started adventurous lifestyle. Priorities.

Lady Selene came out of one of the many doors that were hidden among the walls and floor of the cavern. She had replaced her earlier white dress (gown?) thingy with a black one and had tied her hair up tightly in a bun.

"I did not lose another of my family for her memory to be defiled by a boy. Since I take no pleasure in killing innocents, I'll provide you with a way out," she said while looking down at Tushar as if he was some poor beggar who had asked for water during a drought. "Consent to me erasing your memories and surrender your ownership of the Sentinence and you'll be allowed to live. Do or think of cheating me, and I'll personally see to it that your death will feel like a welcome relieve."

Tushar stared at the woman in black. When he had first met her, she had been an almost loving motherly figure who showed great concern and admiration at his feat of gaining entry to the cavern. But as soon as she found out that he had the medallion with him, she turned rageful towards him. Her angry questions were all aimed at the girl who had landed in his sister's bedroom and a strange Sentinel. The same word had previously been used by the girl before she fainted again. The girl... Marina. The crystal ball turning black did not look like a good omen about her health to Tushar. Her intention had been cleared to pass on the artefact to his sister Aarushi. But then his sister, in her worry for the girl and anger at him for making useless comments at the situation, had handed the artefact to him.

The artefact had stuck to his chest since she had thrust it there. When Selene had left the room through one of the doors, he had tried everything he could with it. It _came off_ of his chest easily... but every time he stumbled in the uneven cavern, it would jump from his hand or wherever he had placed it and jump on his body sticking to him again with the same adhesion and silver glow. He had _tried_ keeping it off by locking it one of the drawers of the nearby tables, but it had ended spectacularly in the drawer automatically opening when he tried to fall to endanger his life. Every time he had tried to remove it and keep it away, it had always come back at the first sign of danger to him.

Speaking to it did not help. It just made him look stupid.

However, his little Greek mythology knowledge did come in handy when he reasoned out that this Selene was either the Greek Goddess of the Moon herself... which seemed pretty impossible to a cynic like him. Or she was the leader to some secret Illuminati type high tech organisation with teleportation technology that recruited secret agents from around the world. He wanted to lean towards the second option, but his thoughts of the mystical garden of glowing flora had made him doubt his assessment. _There were books about the Old Gods coming back after all._

Looking back up at the stern-faced woman, Tushar came to a decision. He stood in front of a Goddess and it would've been the height of idiocy to spurn her without some kind of a trump card against her. In his current state, that wasn't possible, so...

"I agree, Lady Selene." He took off the medallion from his chest and handed it to the deity. Lady Selene took it from him and after muttering a low incantation, covered her hand in purple fire.

"Don't worry about this now. This will make you forget all about this place and send you back to your home. Your sister will be sent here in place and she'll take your place as the Sentinel" she said touching her burning hand to Tushar's forehead. At first, nothing happened.

Then the medallion in Selene's other hand glowed and flew back to Tushar's chest, taking away the purple fire from Selene's palm and absorbing it. Her eyes widened and suddenly, she swore: "Well fuck!"

Tushar did the only thing that a boy like him could do. He fist-pumped. The next hour contained various attempts from Lady Selene to make they medallion reject the boy only for its return to his body and absorb whatever spell was cast on him. They had gone as far as walking away from the medallion and then trying the spell in another locked room, but the enchantments on the medallion allowed it to always make it back to Tushar. Even simply sending the boy back to his room did not work as teleportation sent him through a body of water which made the medallion think that he was drowning and hung on his chest when he stood upright in his room.

After an hour of various attempts and looking through the various leather-bound books kept in the shelves, Lady Selene walked up to the boy and gave him a nod.

"You'll have to do I guess."

"Uhh... do what, my lady?" Tushar questioned, hiding his inner excitement at getting his quest.

"I don't have enough time left under the night today so I'll be quick. I expect you to keep up. You are a smart boy. I can say that much from the way you performed in those experiments. Tell me, have you ever been to Greece?" she asked him.

He replied in much the same way that the Moon Goddess had a few hours ago. "Well Fuck!" he swore. Passing a hand through his tangled mess of sweaty hair, he looked back up at the woman and said in a low voice, " So you are the Spirit of the Moon. A Greek Goddess personified before me. Let me guess. The other Gods are real too, aren't they? I bet that all those thunderstorms and hurricanes and earthquakes are just caused by Zeus, Poseidon and Hades causing a general ruckus during their semi-decennial get-togethers."

Lady Selene smiled warmly at the boy before her, some of her previous warmth bleeding through her previous grief at the loss of Marina.

"You are quite the smart one aren't you?" she said with an amused smirk. "Yes," she raised a hand in the air and the ceiling was filled with projections of various scenes from Greek mythology, "all of them are real. But when you are outside of this cavern, I advise you to not take their names in such reckless abandon. They might be silly old geezers with delusions of grandeur, but they are _powerful _silly old geezers with delusions of grandeur."

"Most of the ancients can zero in on the person who spoke their name IF it was taken near or in their domain. My base has wards that prevent that, but your house doesn't," she pointed out with a grin. "Most of them are usually busy with maintaining whatever duty they had in their part. Apollo and Artemis guide the Sun and the Moon around the globe. Hermes works as a messenger for the gods... _and occasionally a thief for the right price._ They are mostly busy in their jobs but _sometimes_, –" she said the word with an almost naughty smirk "– they visit some interesting mortals to relieve _pressure_ so to speak. The products of these unions are, as you must have figured out by now, demigods." She glanced at a picture showing Achilles, Hercules and other Greek heroes standing together as though for a selfie. (Photo Courtesy of Persephone from The Isle of Blest)

"Half human. Half Immortal."

Shocked by the revelation that Aphrodite might be aware of the time he searched for her sexy pictures, Tushar paled considerably. Taking his colour as her cue, Selene continued. "You need not worry child. The ancients keep themselves well away from the mortal realm. The Divide might collapse if the secret might come out. There is an ancient force called the Mist which clouds the senses of mortals and prevents them from realising the depth of what they see."

"But there are so many different gods in the pantheon... And if the Greeks exist, I can safely bet that the Egyptians and Norse and Indians and others exist as well." He ignored the shocked look on her face and continued his questioning, " So many pantheons can't co-exist at the same time and be stable for this... Mist that you talk of. What if this Divide collapse? What if Surya and Appollo and Ra start fighting over who gets to drive the sun chariot. What happens then? Cause I can't believe for a single moment that a single cosmic power no matter how strong could fool anyone."

Selene stood there dumb-struck for a moment. Letting out a small laugh that made Tushar blush, she grinned. "You are a smart one! A legacy of Athena perhaps?" she said and waved off his confusion with her hand, "What you doubt is true. The Mist does have its faults. If a person is overly exposed to various _ancients_ of any descent, the Mist will have to change their memories to a point that their body will adapt a weak resistance to it. Kind of like a vaccine shot. Except that the Mist isn't so weak to be defeated by the mind's natural defences. However, when two people with such resistant minds have a child, a gene might get passed off in the blood that makes them immune to the Mist. No matter how strong the illusion, they will always be able to see past it."

"Such people are rare, however. They usually need two parents who have some way to get resistance to the Mist. And there's still a chance that the Immunity Gene might be recessive," replied Selene.

"So what's stopping them from exposing our secrets? Don't they know about it all as they can see it?" Tushar asked, excited at the way he could see this going. _I am going to be an assassin who kills people who see too much. _

"Most learn to ignore it or just give it up to a trick of light or dehydration. But some learn to question what they see... They pose the real danger to our worlds. That's where we come in." Selene said. _YES! It's happening. Fantasy World here I come._

"We act as the traffic police of the Mist–" _Wait.. for what? _"_– _We make sure that the ancients and the demigods don't put too much strain on the Mist. Cosmic Babysitters if you will– " _Who's the assassin then? _"– who take care of some events to make sure that the conflicts don't leak out to the mortal eyes," said Lady Moon. "Of course the traffic here is not two cars but a hundred different fighter jets that don't know the C of collaboration. And a collision will most probably lead to the dissolution of the Divide. Not just for our road, not for all of them."

"Where's the twist in this! Who would want to be a traffic controller? That's no fun. Where's the catch?" whined Tushar.

Selene smiled a _smile_. A smile that promised pain to the little boy who stood in front of her...

"You are quite correct in assuming there's a twist. There are more than one in fact since I have just given you the summary of the duties. But the thing is... The Order of The Sentinels has stood vigilant through 6 millennia and 7 different wars. Our order has been hiding the stuff that was too sensitive for mortal eyes. Hiding the very existence of our world to prevent the Seers from rising in numbers. For 6 millennia The Sentinels have stood strong, independent of whoever ruled the Earth at that time. Under Titans, under Gods, under Giants, under Humans... we have saved all their kingdoms from being exposed."

"But the Order of The Sentinels has been exclusively female since the beginning of time," said Selene, pointing towards a book in the shelf that had Roll Call written on its side, "Much like a group of girls that Artemis leads, the Sentinels are also exclusively girls. Immortal girl, but girls none the less. I don't require them to take some stupid vow of chastity but I sure as Hades expect them to not frolicking around spouting garbage about love and family like some child of Aphrodite or Demeter. But the point stands. They were all girls. All of them. Which unless I am mistaken – or not updated with the modern fashion sense – you are not. Which I can't allow," explained Selene.

Tushar swallowed, suddenly very nervous and aware of how tight his clothes felt. "What do you suggest, My Lady? Surely there must be a way for me to get out of this. I understand that the medallion chose me, but maybe it could choose again if I handed it off like the girl did to my sister and my sister did to me?"

"Don't worry boy." She said warmly. "Of course there is a way. I wouldn't be the best sorcerer in town if I didn't have a way, would I?"

"Really?" said Tushar hopefully, "What?"

"Tell me, have you heard the tale of The Brave and Mighty Siproites?"

**_REVIEW! _****_I can't live without them! And if I can't live, how can I make coffee? And if I can't make coffee, how can I write? Or can I..._**


	2. Choose Your Gender

_**Author's**__** Note:**_ _**Aaaaand the second chapter is finally here! Sorry for the wait, but I was kinda busy... I was busy procrastinating. But I have finally written this thing down and now it's ready for you guys to read! As always, Read, Review, and Rejoice! Telling me about any Easter Egg's you find hidden or any theories about the next adventure of the Sentinel will land you a special prize. **_

_**DISCLAIMER: I do not have ownership of any part of Percy Jackson and the Olympiads. If I did, then I would have made my fanfic canon! Use your brains damn it!**_

* * *

_**Choose Your Gender.**_

* * *

_The Day Before Today,_

_In an abandoned warehouse hidden heavily with the Mist, two people are meeting. Their faces are shrouded by the darkness, tendrils of the inky blackness huddling their faces._

"What are we going to do about the _relic?"_

"Not sure yet. Polyphemus is being stubborn about his demands. He would give us the Fleece to restore the _relic_ but we will have to fulfil his demands first."

"Damned one-eyed fucker! To Tartarus with him," screamed one.

"What about you? How does our army fare? Are the _patrons_ providing? I can smell the heat of the forge on you. And also a certain... _stench_. How's that working?"

"Everything is working fine. You will have what you need by next year. Just be sure to secure your position by then. It won't do for you to get caught this early in the game. Especially since the civil war hasn't started yet."

One of the figures shifted and the ceiling light hit his head to illuminate a head of golden hair. Just as quick his hair had appeared, they disappeared again, shrouded by the obscuration magic performed on them. The figure spying on them from the rooftops cursed. The magic was too strong to be broken by the subtle moon magic that granted her secrecy, and trying to use anything stronger with _him_ present would be equivalent to shouting _HEY! _from the rooftop. The figure adjusted her silver robes and decided to end it for once and forever. She drew Obscuration Runes on herself, hoping that the enemy wouldn't figure out who was after them...

As an afterthought, she dimmed the obscuration enough to let the silver stand out. Hopefully, they would think she was a Hunter or someone like that. Checking the quiver on her back for arrows, she stood tall on the roof. She shot two arrows into the warehouse. The glass broke and along with the shards fell two lightstones. She planned to go in as soon they were blinded by the lightstones and hit them with the element of surprise. If not a direct kill, she should get enough of a head-start on them to finish them.

_Kill whoever was planning the attack and hopefully get back to the cave in time for dessert._

Her idea was not absolute, however, as it was seen a moment later. The lightstone hit the floor and flared out white light with the intensity of the afternoon sun. The obscuration spell that hid the conspirators broke a moment later, showing a tall young man with sand-blonde hair, eyes as blue as the winter sky and, most distinguishing of all, a long pale scar that ran from the bottom of his right eye to his chin. Near him stood a man in battle armour, with a ram-horned helmet and a large mace hanging from a loop on his belt. The boy stepped back in surprise while the Titan merely smirked.

"We had been expecting you," was all he said.

"Nobody expects Death." The Sentinel went into battle mode right from the start, not giving the enemy a chance to prepare. Her twin daggers danced at the rebels, hoping to slice off the ram's head where it grew. Her assault had varying effects, ranging from a large crippling injury to the boy, who couldn't keep up with her speed due to the after-shock of the surprise, to mild annoyance from Krios who merely swatted aside her slashes with his gauntlet, not even bothering to hide his distaste at her weakness. Seeing that her strikes were bring wasted, she decided to end it quickly and twisted the daggers in her hand, and threw them at the blond guy, who blocked the first with his sword but was struck in his heart by the second. Removing a smaller bluestone from a pouch on her back, she tossed them at Krios.

"Hope you like the present My Lord," she screamed while jumping backwards away from the Titan, " Lady Selene said that your body still reacts to the fragments of the chain that was used to bind you. I guess we will just have to find out the truth for ourselves, won't we?" Expecting the tiny rune-balls to bind and destroy the Titan, she jumped further back, hoping to save her clothes from being touched by the shower of ichor and dust.

She was confident in the runestones. She had no reason not to be. They were made by Lady Selene. One touch and Krios would feel his power drained and go back to Tartarus and wait for another few millennia to reform. So she jumped back. She jumped back from the impending explosion that Titans gave. She jumped back hard. And jumped right into a sword thrust from her back. A sword thrust from the Titan Krios.

The Other Krios shimmered for a moment before the glamour faded and Prometheus stood in his place. The Real Krios walked out of the shadows, sword held in both hand and a Sentinel impaled on its blade. He twisted the blade, making the woman puke blood from her mouth.

"How my brother Iapetus would envy me today! He always said that _impaling _was his right," joked the Titan. "But then he wasn't the only one who ignored others, was he? Our little assassin here thought that attacking and killing me would be this easy. How they forget that besides being the Titan of Stars, I am also a Master of Disguise and Obscuration. People like you and my father learned it the hard way."

Prometheus walked up to the Sentinel, the small rune-balls in his hand, "I'm sorry but were these little balls supposed to kill me?" he laughed. "They hardly tickled me since I wasn't the one those infernal chains were forged for."

"When you informed me that there was a secret order of immortal girls who would have the potential to stop us before we began, I expected more Lord Prometheus." Another figure walked out from the darkness in front of her, revealing himself to be a perfectly alive Luke Castellan; his earlier dead body replaced by a bleeding lamia.

The Sentinel stared disbelievingly as she saw her life fading before her and the risk she took for it be completely wasted. Her hands came up to grab the sword, to try and pull her impaled body off of it, only for the blade to cut into her hands and bite further into her skin. Her vision started to blacken as more blood ran out of her mouth, and the hole in her stomach pooled blood around her feet.

" I wouldn't try saving myself now. Few people could've survived this injury... a Sentinel who has been alive since the last century is not one of them," advised Prometheus. "It is your time to go now my dear. Go." He motioned to Luke standing beside him and looked amusedly at Krios standing behind her, "Pass on the Sentience to your successor, she will be fully trained and ready to carry on your work... by the time we win this war."

The trio laughed. Krios jerked the sword again and kicked the body lodged in it. The Sentinel flew across the room, stopping after sliding across the floor and painting it red with her blood. She reached up to her neck with her weak palm and pressed the glowing silver-red medallion that hung there.

Golden light surrounded her as her wounds closed themselves and the medallion took her the nearest candidate who would have the honour of becoming a Sentinel.

Marina opened her eyes as she fell on top of a boy. Although the boy protested, she was grateful for the soft landing. Her strength had left her body and every breath felt like a burning in her lungs. She felt her age catching up to her and hoped the girl would come here soon. She heard brief sounds of screaming. Soon she was lifted by tender hands and set upright against a hard surface.

"..rushi... who? ... joking... girlfrie... conscious..." the words flickered in broken lapses. Some water was splashed across her face, bringing her back from the edge of unconsciousness. She felt more than saw the medallion in her palm glow a bit when a thumb was pressed against her wrist. Energy flowed from the medallion into her and she gasped awake, finally seeing the room she was in and the boy she'd probably fell on. She saw the girl hovering over her, concern painted across her face. She saw a tiny silver string connect itself from the medallion to the girl and catching the hand that had moments ago checked her for signs of life, she placed the medallion in the girl's open hand and – with the last drops of life she had before the medallion disconnected itself from her life force – forced out the words:

"Take it! Take the Sentience! You must be the Sentinel. Warn the others... the old one is stirring. Tell Lady Moon to awaken the council. You must save them."

Her strength left her and she fell back against the hard wooden surface of the bed. With her life slowly leaving her, she thought of the day she had been recruited and wondered if she might find her predecessor in the Hall of Memories. She wondered if the recruit, 'Ros' if she heard correct, would be strong enough to stop the second coming of the Titans. It was too late to prevent the war entirely. Training a Sentinel into being perfect at whatever they did took the better part of a decade. The new Sentinel might just have a chance at chopping off the head of Krios as revenge for her, but she doubted that The _Order of Waves_ might survive that long into Titan rule. They _had_ effectively ruined an attempt at rebellion even though it was not their duty to do so. Thankfully, she had done her duty and so she could rest in peace. In all 109 years of her long life, she had worried about what would come next, but now that her service had ended, she had no regrets and no loose ends. She was finally _content._

Opening her eyes one last time she saw the magic of the Medallion kick in as someone from the room was teleported, to Lady Moon probably.

Life was good. Death will be better.

* * *

_0300 hrs,_

_Lady Moon's Lair(__**HOW MANY TIMES DO MUST I SAY IT'S A BASE NOT A LAIR!)**_

_The Hour of The Ritual._

"Soooo, this Siproites guy sounds like he was pretty cool, but I think maybe some extra knowledge of what I am getting into might be necessary before I allow you to bathe me with what is either blood or ketchup," said Tushar. Lady Selene had said something about the initiation ceremony that had to be done in six hours of the arrival of the new Sentinel and how they had already lost a better part of it and had pressured him into the ritual. Something told him that he should ask some questions about stuff he did not know, but that caution had long before been drowned by his over-eager adventurer.

_After all, it wasn't like Lady Selene would 'intentionally' try to harm me, would she?_

How wrong he was!

* * *

"Sooo, this is the ritual room?" asked Tushar.

It was, in fact, the ritual room. One of the doors in the Sentinel's underground base (lair!), which was hidden particularly well behind a normal door, which led you outside into the forest if opened once, but if one were to open and close the door from the outside 13 times while resisting the compulsion to step through it, one will find oneself into the aforementioned ritual room.

Stepping through the thoroughly abused door, he had faced a set of spiral stairs going deeper into the earth. He had followed Lady Selene down the damp stairs, illuminated by torches holding green fire. He had occasionally stumbled or tripped or slipped on something that wasn't quite visible to him, but Lady Selene had snapped her fingers and he had proceeded downwards safely again. They were defences against non-Sentinels entering the room he would have learnt later.

The area, where the stairs ended, was big. Very big. And sophisticated to the boot, Tushar had noted. A bird's eye view of the dungeon would reveal four prominent characteristics of the floor. The first was The Ritual Room, made out of black marble, wood and imperial gold, which occupied over a third of the floor. The Lab was a bit smaller than the ritual room but no less interesting. Despite holding only a tenth of the area, it was easily Lady Selene's most favourite place. For anybody with the right skills, the lab was heaven. The Observatory, on the other hand, was much weirder. The cavern was, to the unclouded mind, over a 100 mt deep inside the Earth. Despite this face, it somehow managed to fit in a hole in the ceiling, acting as a skylight, probably to pour moonlight into the ritual room and the lab. The Observatory, seemed to the layman, a useless addition, as the sky could easily be seen from the lab or ritual room. However, the spartan room covering a third of the area was built keeping in mind the war, and as such was fully equipped to observe and analyse, not only rare cosmic events and moonlight of the eclipse but also to act as a radar. A fifth of the area was filled by hallways and corridors, every wall of which was covered with bookshelves. Volumes from ancient Greece and Rome, detailing rituals and potions so rare that they'd make Hecate wet her cloak, were stored in these shelves, with a perfect stasis charm cast over them to prevent the decay of Time to work on them.

Lady Selene, however, had dragged the distracted _initiate_ straight over to the ritual room, where the magic was going to happen. The ritual room, Tushar noted, _felt_ different. There was a feeling of _something_ different inside it, which he could not catch up on. The walls of the room were half a meter thick and made out of a black rock which he had never seen before. The insides were lined with obsidian, while the floor was layered with black and white marble slabs. The ceiling had crystals buried inside its surface that glowed a radiant silver and illuminated the room. The ritual area was made like a target board, with the red and black concentric rings replaced by land and water. The centre of the target was a large circular island around 6 mt in diameter, which floated inside a ring of water around 2 mt wide, which was surrounded by another circular land strip half a meter wide, which was surrounded by another moat around three and a half meters wide, which finally connected to the rest of the room with the marble floor.

Since Tushar had stepped inside, Lady Selene had summoned various ingredients and had been arranging them around the place without so much as a glance towards Tushar. The questions had started when she had come back with a bucket full of blood floating behind her. The bucket of blood in question must have been obtained through some very immoral means. But that did not concern Tushar. What concerned him, was the fact that it was hovering over the central disc of the ritual room; the place where Lady Selene had asked him to go and wait.

"Are you sure that we should do this?" asked Tushar, "I don't feel so sure about this. You haven't even told me what the ritual is about. All that I know is that it's about some great hero named Siproites. I don't even know who he was!"

"Do you want to bring an end to the Order of the Waves, Tushar," hissed Lady Moon. "I have never missed an initiation before yours. Unless I complete this ritual and make you an official Sentinel, you need to learn to go with the flow!"

"All my books have taught me one thing," said Tushar pointing a finger at Lady Moon, "Don't participate in a ritual you can't recite backwards in your sleep."

Selene paused waving her hands around the room — all the equipment, candles, buckets, stones, knives stopped where it was (including a stream of half molten wax being poured into a glass which froze in the air) — and looked Tushar in the eyes. He finally saw how... _deep_ her eyes were. How the silver light of the crystals set in the ceiling of the chamber would naturally fall on her face and her eyes looked just that bit more silver; beautiful silver that had somehow managed to show not lustre, but age. At that moment, he realised that there was a burden on Selene's shoulders. A burden that had been on her since before Civilization. A burden that she had taken on for the protection of others. The part of him that objected to being the subject of the ritual slowly withered and died. Nodding his head with a look of seriousness that he never wore before, he walked towards the centre of the ring, walking through the water-filled moats slowly to not fall.

"Thank you for understanding," said Lady Selene, her silver eyes softening up a bit at his gesture. "You won't regret this when I'm done."

_For my sake, let's hope I won't,_ thought Tushar, before squishing that thought and concentrating on the preparations. The blood bucket floated about him, while the rings around the central disc were being used to place candles and incense in weird formations. Some were placed on the rings, while some floated in the moat on silver discs. A large brown rug suddenly rushed under his feet, forcing him to bounce lest he was thrown back, and fitted itself snugly on the central platform. An ornate vase floated from behind Selene and poured a black liquid inside the water of the moat, turning it inky black.

"Strip your clothes and throw them inside the basket."

"WHAT?" shouted Tushar, flummoxed by the command. A small wicker basket bumped against his feet, nudging him with the small hand-holds. " You want me to stand naked here!"

"Why?" asked Selene, a small smile crossing her face. "Surely, you have nothing to be ashamed of!"

Tushar heated up at the jibe and made a face, his lips forming a pout. "It's cold out here I mean! What if I get hypothermia? Who's gonna help you through the ritual then?" he said slowly.

"Your clothes haven't been cleansed of outside agents which might intercept the ritual. I can't use the same disinfectants on your clothes that I'll use on you. Any outside factors might make the ritual go haywire," warned Selene. "That's why it's best that you leave nothing on your body." She started magicking stuff around again, this time various tinted crystal balls flowing around the room. "Put the Sentience in too. It'll jump to you if it's needed," she added, not disrupting her work.

Hesitantly, as if expecting someone to save him of the embarrassment, he started removing his clothes and put them in the wicker basket.

Tushar had never been an athlete. Once he had tasted the drug of imagination he had reduced his outdoors time, till it had trickled down to only the PE period at school. He was not a glutton, so luckily his body was not obese, but his muscles weren't defined either. His small appetite combined with his mother's fatty Indian food had made sure that he wasn't scrawny or fat but normal. With just the right amount of fat hanging from his skin to put him between the thin and obese category and not enough muscle to make him look like either a swimmer or a wrestler, he looked..._mundane._ He looked precisely like what one expects an NPC to look. Standing at 5' 9'', he was mundane. Weighing in at 60 kg, he was mundane. With the top speed of 30 km per hour, he was mundane. With no muscle on his body, he was mundane. With stretch marks on his stomach and back, he was mundane. With his mundane body, he was mundane.

Luckily, there was a part in him that was not mundane. The only part of him that he was proud of him. His mind which was, all thanks to him, not mundane. His mind which connected threads out of the blue. His mind which saw reason where everyone else cried war. His mind which snatched floating straws to make a craft in the middle of a cyclone. His mind which was not gonna help him so soon in the ritual.

He stripped naked and, feeling the cold wind hit his skin, placed the Sentience upon the pile of his clothes. The basket flew outside the room and the wooden door closed. Lady Selene stopped the telekinesis a moment later and looked around the ritual chamber with satisfaction. She looked him in the eye and told him, "Lay down on the rug with your arms and legs spread outwards. And whatever happens, don't drink the blood or let it go down your eyes."

"_NOX —_" the mage lights floating around dimmed themselves "— _**Kindle**__,_" Selene spoke in Greek and the white candles and black incense sticks scattered around the chamber lit up in response. " Begin." Picking up a grey leather-bound tome, she started incanting the words for the ritual, switching between Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and other — never heard by human ears since 1800 — languages. Tushar's naked skin itched against the animal skin rugs that he was lying on, as the fur on the rug began bristling. The silver bucket overhead slowly tilted, pouring the crimson liquid onto the boy's naked body — slowly advancing towards his face, forcing him to close his eyes and lips; the action coming to his mind almost naturally. He did so with haste, some unknown part of his mind that he had never _felt_ existing before telling him of the infinite horrors of accidentally ingesting the blood.

The stream of blood pouring down climbed up steadily, coating his legs and his chest with the thick liquid; solidifying in its place and creating a second layer of skin upon him. He felt the blood stick to his skin and try to crawl inside his very body, uprooting the hair that had grown on his arms and climbing in through the pores with a mild shock to his nerves. He felt the blood pour onto his neck and then his lips. His tongue tasted the drops of blood that had trickled down his closed lips and he felt it's sweetness melt his taste sensors; before the sweetness turned to extreme bitterness that tested his ability to not puke in the middle of the ceremony. The taste changed again, as if a chameleon's skin, and he felt the sour tang of rotten lemons nauseate his entire body. The taste changed once more, salty beyond the limits of the Dead Sea, salty enough to feel like his bones melted. He pressed his lips closer and tried not to think about the few drops of blood that stayed in the gorge between his lips. The crimson stream poured onto his nose and he smelled the viscous liquid, reminding him of his every dream and every aspiration that he ever had, and along he went with all his dreams. He lived his life to the fullest and took another step after that. He stood above his sister, high up in his parents' eyes. Society looked at him and threw garlands and laurels at him. His friends grinned at him and begged him to let them be a part of his next adventure. He stood tall above the world, victorious, stronger than the rest, wiser than the rest, smarter than the rest. He stood above them all as the MILF(Man Itching Life's Fantasy).

And suddenly he was back. Like from a chair tipping _far_ too back, he came back to reality with a jerk. His eyes widened, only for the blood to pour down it. He felt his eyeballs burning and his pupils dilated wider than they ever had before. He felt the blood press a hot brand onto his eyes, he feared that blindness that was gonna plague him for the rest of his days.

Luckily for Lady Selene —Blind Sentinel's took more time to train—, he didn't go blind. Unluckily for her, Tushar could _see _now. His mind cleared of the fog and he started improving his body. His hearing refined and he started understanding the words spoken by Lady Selene.

"_Change him so he can serve. Change him so he can help. Change him so he can work. Change him so he can provide. Change him so he can do. Change him so he can take. Change him so he can give. Change Him So He Can!"_

His body contracted and spasmed again, with the burning sensation he felt in his eyes returning. He felt his muscles burning under the skin as more of the blood flowed down from the hair pores. He felt his bones go brittle and froze under the implications of it. He felt the blood burn again and his bones broke, earning a cry from him, all thoughts of not drinking the blood forgotten. The blood suddenly vaporized and suddenly he felt new bones grow inside of him, the experience being more painful, earned another ear-splitting cry from him. His muscles spasmed: once, twice and thrice. Tushar felt the oncoming storm those spasms indicated. Immediately they tore themselves apart under the sudden pressure and sewed themselves together much stronger. All of these renovations took place while he was completely conscious and as such, hurt like a bitch.

Even though his bones and muscles had suddenly made themselves stronger than they ever were and stronger than they ever could've been under his neglect, he screamed at the pain. Once he had screamed his lungs out, —they would be rebuilt in a minute— he regained some semblance of his surroundings and heard a steady pounding coming from the direction of the door.

"_Change him so he may live. Change him so he may breathe. Change him so he may survive. Change him so he may create. Change him so he may not die. Change him so his heart may beat. Change Him So He May!"_

The burning came again. This time much stronger. It focused on his internal organ, shredding him apart piece by piece and mashing it all back together before he could scream. His voice gave out as his voice-box was destroyed and remade in the turn of a second. His stomach, his intestines, his liver, his kidneys all felt as if they were bring washed with acid. His lungs were the worst, the pain made him breathe in sharply, only to find that there was nowhere for the air to go, and for a second, he discovered the true meaning of being breathless. His heart came next, and as all blood stopped flowing through his veins – for one moment – his body shut down. Only to fire back up faster with a new heart to pump blood faster through it all. His brain came next but, thankfully he would add, he did not remember any of it. He took a few slow breaths trying to deduce the Where, Who and Why before his memories returned and the screaming started a new. His new and improved organs or his stronger filtration system did not help much in that regard since the pain was imminent when having your organs regrown. Luckily, his brain did have enough focus to listen to the pounding noise again, and upon looking at the door, found the, probably titanium or adamantium, the door being slowly dented with every hit that echoed around the chamber.

The part of his mind that had been objecting to the ritual in the first place was very much willing to stop this at once, but another part of him told him to not interfere. A part that he was beginning to doubt very much by this point. He had often doubted himself and had come to terms with the fact that given his many moods, there might as well be 13 different hocruces inside him. But he had spent many nights sleepless teaching himself not to doubt himself and he was ready to see it to the end unless something worse than body reconstruction happened. But since he _had_ agreed to the ritual in the first place, he was going to see it to an end. _If only to see the silver of Lady Selene's eyes one more time..._

_WAIT A SECOND! _Tushar mind-screamed. _Why am I getting romantic thoughts about Lady Selene?_

And then he started thinking further back. The silver of her eyes. The irrational decision of joining an unknown ritual. The weird presence of a new identity inside his mindscape. The thoughts that repressed his desire to stop the ritual. They all made sense to him now.

" _Change him so he shall do the tasks I give him. Change him so he shall not hesitate. Change him so he shall trust. Change him so he shall work. Change him so he shall host. Change him so he shall stand guard. Change him so shall be a carrier. Change Him So He Shall!_"

A silver light shone from the candles around, lighting up Tushar's blood-covered naked body. Unlike the earlier things, his body did not change this time. Not physically. But none the less he felt something inside him change. Something that made him forget temporarily about stopping the ritual that he had no desire to participate in. And he felt it too, a pull at his heart, like experiencing a new flavour of ice cream, like stepping through a waterfall and emerging on the other side with a different perspective. Like standing at a place where, at the same time, it was raining and also sunny. As if he had split a blob of jelly into two separate halves. As if his soul and spirit had somehow been altered. That he had been _changed_.

The pounding against the door continued, the minimal damage being done to it was not worth Selene's attention.

"_ I call upon thee,_" she lit her hand on purple and black fire and continued "_Answer my call from the otherworld. Answer my plea and fulfill your duty. Come forth from the Moon Realm and make this body your vessel as you guide this lost soul to victory in the name of your sisters and the name of your duties. Come forth Darkness and occupy this shell as you pave your path to victory."_

The skylight dimmed as mist covered it and the flames of the candles burned a brilliant silver, and a black mist-form – definitely female or a misshapen male if the spectral image was anything to go by – descended from the natural skylight and floated down to levitate above Tushar's waist. The black mist-body, which was by now only a mass of black mist swirling in the shape of a female body, started glowing and assumed a corporeal Silver-Grey astral form. The girl, because there was no doubt now that it was a girl, was almost Tushar's age. With her long astral hair floating behind her in an anti-gravity field, and her body hovering close above Tushar's body, he suddenly remembered that he wanted the ritual to be cancelled. (He also maintains that were it not for the gravity of the situation, he would've pointed out how he liked to be on top.)

"St...Stop this RITUAL! I don't want to be turned into an object of possession!" He screamed desperately, too shocked to look anywhere except the astral girl slowly lowering herself towards Tushar's body. He tried to move out from his place on the bear rug, but found that most of his body was either not responding to his commands or too much in pain to move; the newly reconstructed bones and muscles being too sore and the grown brain not yet fully in control of his senses.

" _Come forth Shadow and take your dues. Come forth and occupy. Come forth and cut. Come forth and take him for your own. Come forth and change him so may fit You. Come forth and Change him so he can provide You. Come forth and change him so he shall become You. COME FORTH!_"Lady Moon screamed, her eyes burning with silver fire, completely unaware of Tushar's protests or the increased pounding at the door of the chamber.

"Stop! Don't do this," the boy said, raising his blood-soaked hands in front of his body to stop the spirit from descending. But with an icy creep down his arms, the spirit simply passed through his hands and started descending into his body, astral legs going through his waist. He saw the legs of the astral spirit disappear into his waist and felt the small changes that were happening across his body. _Changes_ he definitely did not agree to. _Changes_ he did not like to think about. "STOP THIS AT ONCE, LADY! I did not sign up for a gender transplant! Stop her from... from changing me!" He shouted at the petrified Lady Moon. "And you," he shouted at the spirit slowly making it's way down his waist, "Stop using me like this. I don't have any problems with beautiful girls trying to straddle me, but I don't let ghosts do that to me! Stop using me as a hotel room. I ain't a necrophile!"

The Spirit did not stop. It seemed amused by his words if the small smile on her face said anything.

The pounding increased. Way stronger and louder. Loud enough to distract Tushar from the spiritual taboo happening to him. Strong enough to rattle the chamber and shake the candles floating in the moat.

Tushar looked at the badly damaged door which was about to be blown off its hinges and recalled– The Sentience. It had always protected him when it felt that he was in danger. And it had started trying to break the door down since he was having his muscles sand-blasted. All he had to was distract the spirit long enough for the Sentience to bust through that bunker and sparkle the room with Holy Water. Then he would be safe and away from this place.

That was easier said than done, however, especially since the girl was halfway through Tushar and the boy was already feeling dizzy and weird. He felt his hair growing longer and his bones shift under his skin. Luckily, when he pressed his legs together, he could feel his _stash_ secure in its place. The girl was still lowering herself slowly on his waist, her stomach already touching his.

" Lady... woman... Spiritess? Whatever you are. Let's cut a deal. You can keep my body on days that don't end in Y," Tushar joked, and much to his astonishment, the spirit actually shook at the shoulders as if laughing. More importantly, it slowed down. If only slightly.

"Okay then, how about you keep it on weekends? Surely a beautiful soul as yourself would be content to grace the world with her awesomeness twice a week won't she? So what does the world's most beautiful girl say?" flirted Tushar, and the silver-grey spirit blushed orange at the cheeks. She stopped long enough to flash him a bigger smile. She even giggled._ Giggled!_ Spirits don't usually flirt. At least not with a guy like him.

Tushar had convinced himself that flirting could save all his problems when the girl took thing too far. She slapped his chest playfully with her hand as if flirting back, then started entering his body at a faster pace. Her hands started sinking into his chest while her chest went through his waist. Tushar panicked again because no matter how much he had tried, his mouth had once again landed him into trouble.

Unfortunately for him, the girl was almost shoulder deep in him, and Lady Selene showed no signs of helping him, petrified as she was in her silver summoning state. Fortunately, the Sentience chose that moment to break open the door and burst into the room.

The door breaking down had caused a lot of chaos inside the room, as the broken metal landed on the floor of the cavern and scattered the various ingredients scattered about Lady Selene's feet, creating a cloud a black, brown, red, and blue dust. He raised his head from his position to see what happened, but in all this chaos Tushar could see neither the girl nor the Sentience or even Firefly Selene. He felt something attach to his forehead and warmth flooded through him... but so did chill. Something went inside his waist and he felt the chill settle over that part. The Warmth and the Chill spread over his body meeting in a battle at his heart. The warmth turned burning hot while the iciness turned a numbing cold and the polar opposites collided into his body, punishing him for something that he had no part in. All he could do was lie there with his blood-soaked hair and spirit-raided soul, while the two powers ran circles around his heart, causing him no small amount of pain. When he thought that he was gonna pass out from the extremes colliding in his heart, the two sensations _combined_ and he felt his heart slow down. _Thump-Thump!_ _Thump!_ _Thump!_ _THUMP!_ T-H-U-M-P-! It stopped beating.

His body went limp. The room went quiet. The candles had all extinguished. The incenses were shooting thin tendrils of scented smoke into the chamber. The water inside the moat was still. The various crystal balls around Lady Selene had all stopped glowing and laid by her feet. Selene herself was not moving, still in her ritual-induced Silver-Eye paralysis. The air was heavy with the smell of the ingredients that had been thrown around. Blood splattered across the walls, almost as if creating a crime scene for the boy's death. The moonless sky looked down upon the chamber through the natural skylight, looking almost _sympathetic _for the boy. The crystals in the ceiling stopped glowing as if the room mourned the boy's death.

Tushar Mukherjee, The Boy Who Wished, was dead.

* * *

Selene's eyes slowly stopped burning with silver fire and she regained consciousness. She closed her eyelids and cast a mild cooling spell on her eyes. She cast another spell, a _chronas_, to check the time, and was pleased to know that she still had an hour left for the ritual despite her hour-long ritual-induced paralysis. She slowly opened her eyes hoping to see the boy throwing tantrums about switching his anatomy and adding the spirit of a past Sentinel to his mind, but she believed that he would get on rather well with the flirty and playful Sentinel that the girl had been in her time.

Therefore, she was quite shocked to see the door to the ritual room, made of the strongest metal on Earth, broken down and the dormant energy of the ritual room dissipating due to the wreckage. However, she had more important business to attend. Finding where the dormant energy went could wait. The more pressing matter was that Tushar, the young naive boy, was lying on the alter, very much not alive. She ran over to his body, knocking over candles and crystal balls in the process, and pressed a hand against his heart, only to find it not beating. His waist had frozen over with ice formed on it, while his forehead was still burning like a furnace, the blood she had applied to it, dried and crusted. His earlier messy black hair had grown long and turned white. His body was still blood-soaked, but she could see the newly defined muscles now. She even saw the way some of his bones had changed, a female skeleton frame in his male skin. Most probably the effects of the ritual not finishing itself properly. She had not accounted for the medallion interfering in the ritual in such a violent way. She knew of the medallion's tendency to protect the initiate and therefore had placed a spell on the boy so he would stay silent and keep his eyes closed till the end of the ritual. Something must have gone haywire for the compulsion to break and the boy to panic in the way he did and summon the medallion so strongly. The medallion stuck defiantly to his forehead, not coming off even when Selene cast a spell on it to retrieve it. Her eyes widened as the medallion glowed the silver it did when protecting its host from an attack. She checked the energy levels of the room and found them decreasing still, steadily being siphoned off elsewhere. She looked at the medallion and with another flick of her wrist, confirmed her suspicion.

The medallion was absorbing all the energy.

Millennia worth of stagnant unused magical energy was too much to be stored into a single article, which was why the base used the energy instead in the ritual room to fuel any rituals that had to be done. Many of the initiates often tried their luck with rituals and magic during their training, but only 1 in 20 was cut out for it. All the failed rituals and misfired spells, when done inside the base, were automatically adding their strength to the ritual room. And counting the ten years of harsh training most Sentinels went through and also the occasional visit by an on-duty Sentinel in which she often felt free to use her botched up spells, the ritual room had a lot of energy. A lot. Enough that the baboons on Olympus might consider it a threat to their existence if released at once.

Selene knew that the Sentience was the master key to all the facilities of the base. It was the only thing besides herself that had complete control over the entire facility. But for it to intake such high amounts of energy was nothing but suicidal. The medallion had been choosing and training the Sentinels, with Selene's help, since the beginning of Time. For it to be destroyed now (at the brink of war too!) was disastrous. The Sentience was going to self destruct and destroy along with it the base itself with the energy it was absorbing. A better part of the forest too would become infested with magical energy, mutating the wildlife to be abominations for centuries to come. Abominations whose first thought would be to feed and find their place in the world. The destruction of the Sentience would expose the celestial world to the humans, it would do the very thing they were trying to prevent. It would destroy the Divide instantaneously with the destruction it might cause. Everything that they stood for would be destroyed unless...

Unless it was trying to pour that energy into the boy. Give him a super-powered magical defibrillation in a way. A very strong defibrillation. Yes... it could work! All that was needed now was... a slight push. A way for the Sentience to push the energy inside safely without killing the boy. But that was the difficult part. The medallion's choice was absolute. Even though it had selected the boy's sister, Arushi Mukherjee, as the nearest contestant worthy to be a Sentinel, the boy had been the one to hold it and be teleported when it was activated. That simple and accidental act had marked him as the initiate for the ceremony. And as such, it would do all it could and use all its energy to protect the boy till the induction ritual had been done on him. However, the boy could not enjoy _all_ the benefits of the Sentience unless he became a full Sentinel. Something that was pretty much impossible with him being a boy. BUT, if Lady Selene were to somehow turn him into a girl, even if only temporarily, and perform the ceremony on him, the Sentience would get that extra push needed to revive him.

The way to do it, however, was going to cost her very dearly. It was time to send a summon to her old friend. Her specialization in the field would surely finish the job within half an hour, leaving enough time for the Sentience to revive the boy.

It was time to call Artemis.

* * *

Tushar awoke. Which was weird considering he had felt his heart stop breathing? He looked around to find himself in a hospital of sorts. _The Infirmary at The Base_ said a voice in his head. Wait! Who said that? '_It's me, idiot,' _the voice replied._ I am_ _Mystery, your new roommate._

"Ah! I see you are awake Sentinel," said a new voice.

_Of course, I am awake! _He thought bitterly. How many voices had the crazy goddess crammed inside his head?

"I am not inside your head. Sit up and look at me."

Okaay. That was _definitely_ not _inside_ his head. He gently sat up on the bed, leaning on his elbows to do so and was greeted by Lady Selene sitting nearby on a bench. "Are you feeling fine now? The ritual went way worse than what I had planned," she asked in a warm tone, nothing that he had expected from a woman who wanted to fit a spirit of darkness and shadows inside him. She smiled another one of her smiles and asked him, "How's your head now? I couldn't ask you before since you were unconscious, but I really want to know what effects the gender swap ritual had on you."

_Wait. Gender-swap? I thought it was a possession ritual... That means..._

Tushar looked down at his chest and found two things hanging there.

First: The Medallion.

Second: A Brand New Pair of Boobs.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE :**** REVIEW AND FOLLOW FOR MORE!**


	3. Learning The Waltz

**AUTHOR'S NOTE!: I am sorry for the delay! Why was I so late? I got lost on the road of life and spent the last two months trying to find my way back. It was pretty hard since I lost my Map of Life. The old lady with a walker whom I had to help thrice to cross the road did not help. The only other excuse I have for being late is that I am a sorry excuse for a human being who could not get off his ass to work since there were no reviews to motivate him. So if you want faster updates, better start providing me with tasty reviews.**

**Also worth noting is that none of my characters learn a dance form in this chapter, so don't expect the title to tell you what will happen.**

**EDIT: 07/04/2020 18:28: I went through the chapter and corrected a majority of the typos and other formatting errors. There are no changes in the story so do not worry. Feel free to PM me if you spot any more.**

**AND DON'T FORGET. REVIEW!**

* * *

**Learning The Waltz**

* * *

"So let me get this straight," said the —as of yet— nameless girl, "You had to somehow change me into a girl, so that The Sentience, the medallion thing which is a non-living sentient being, would accept me in the ranks of your divine order after you performed the initiation ritual on me, but since I am... well _was _a boy, there was no way of the initiation ritual working on me and in order to make the deadline of six hours, you had to either get another female rookie — which, given the accidentally formed half-bond I had with the Sentience because of touching it at the wrong time, the Sentience prevented you from doing, by protecting me from all harmful things which included you simply giving it away to someone else by replacing or killing me — or somehow turning me into a female, permanently or temporarily, so that the ritual would work and I could turn into a fully fledged Sentinel, for good or for bad, to infinity and beyond, and the way you chose to change me into a girl was by a taking a _sinfully simple ritual_, made specifically by a misandristic goddess for the specific purpose of gender-swapping, and then _altering _and _tinkering _with it so that along with changing my gender, it would also turn me into a better version of myself, physically, biologically, and mentally, but would cause me a lot of pain and suffering — which it did because of _a __botched-up compulsion charm_ of all things — and probably was extremely dangerous and risky given that many of the ingredients, after in-taking orally or ocularly (both of which I did), would have weird and previously unrecorded effects on my body and psychology, one of which was the aforementioned _spell botch-up_, by the end of which I had to go through all of that bodily pain and otherworldly torture while _completely conscious _and accidentally caused my pain to summon the medallion to me which in it's haste to protect me, not only destroyed a seemingly indestructible door which could have probably withstood a direct blast from Zues' lightning bolt but also interrupted in the second half the ritual — where you tried to fit _a past Sentinel's fucking spirit _inside my body so that I would not have to waste another decade on training and learning, like all rooks do, but would directly be prepared for field duty, albeit with a sexually unstable spirit in control of my body, — and caused the whole thing to go haywire cause the ritual was pushing the spirit inside my body, while the Sentience, after identifying it as a part of the ritual, tried to push it out of my body, and the battle between the two of them, just coincidentally enough was centered around my chest area where the opposing forces finally settled down, but made me go into a magical-breathless coma kinda thing where my heart stopped beating and would remain so unless you somehow managed to get enough energy inside me to give me a magical shock, a kick start of sorts, and the Sentience sensing the problem, absorbed all the ambient energy of the room —which was a lot— and was waiting for my magical channels to accept it — I wasn't even aware before today that I had a magical channel in my body to pump energy through — which was pretty much impossible given my non-divine status _Unless! _you somehow turned me into a Sentinel which would give me partial immortality and make me safe against magical energy transfusion, for which you called in a favor from the previously mentioned misandristic goddess — whom I owe a life debt now, which she might just decide to put aside her hatred towards males and ask me to honour — and had her turn me into a girl, using her original brand of gender-swap magic, so that you could make me a Sentinel, thus giving me semi-divinity, thus allowing the Sentience to give the Super Powered Magical Defibrillation and finally revive me, but being conscious means having to deal with a crazy nymphomaniac inside my head whom you tried to place there in the first place and is now stuck inside me cause of the effects of the ritual and the fact that having her present inside my body forks off some of the Sentience's energy towards her, effectively saving me from being Magic-Fried by four millennia worth of Magicka and going down like a supernatural nuclear bomb and destroying all non-organic things in a 10 mile radius and converting all organic life into a mutated version of itself which would indirectly lead to the Olympian Exposure Age, because the Divine world would have no choice but to interfere in the blood bath that would ensue the magical beasts getting loose, and in the end, lead to the thing which your order has worked hard to prevent for six millennia."

She took a deep breath. "Did I miss anything?"

Selene's eyes were the size of the moon when she asked, "How many periods did that explanation have? And while we are on it, how many times did you breathe when saying that?"

_'I wonder what else that throat can take,' _Mystery thought, mentally rubbing her shoulder against the girl's mental barriers to entice her.

_'SHUT UP! We'll discuss my superior oral skills later,' _the girl thought back.

"And as for you, don't try to change the topic," the newly minted Sentinel said, trying her best to ignore the new weight on her chest. "What the fuck was that all about!?"

She then looked down at herself and after a quick peek inside her hospital robe to confirm that she still had boobs, she asked in a calm voice, "And why the fuck am I not panicking about my current ordeal?"

Selene stood from her chair and looked at the girl, "There's a lot that you still need to learn, my dearest Sentinel," she said. "I can answer all of your questions, but not here. You have had a busy night which ate up most of your energy. You need to get some food in your body to make up for the," she paused to search for the right word and then added, "lost fat." She smiled at her subtlety, pointing a small finger at her boobs when the girl showed signs of confusion. "Just follow me and I'll tell you everything you need to know," said Selene and extended an arm towards her for her to take.

"And to be honest, those hospital garbs do your body no favour," she added almost dryly.

_'She does have a point you know...' _said Mystery,_ 'We do need more form-fitting robes.'_

"Fine," the girl groaned, before taking the offered hand and slowly getting up to her feet. Selene led them through hallways and stairs, often walking through doors that did not exist a moment ago, and brought them to a canteen. The table in the centre had healthy food and juices. The walls were lined with storage barrels. Small fires blazed inside, many of them with pots on. A large hearth with a set of armchairs burned near them.

Selene sat on one and motioned her brand new Sentinel to take the other. A wave of her hand brought a fruit basket to the table between them. Another resulted in a glass of wine being placed in Selene's hand. Taking a sip from her glass, she told the girl to eat some fruits. When an apple had been bitten into, she began, "Your summary of what has been happening these past few hours is mostly correct, so I won't waste any time on that. Our first order of business for the day is getting you a new name."

"What's wrong with my current name?" she asked, before realising that Tushar probably did not sound good on a girl. "Oh right... gender swap... I'm gonna need a new name," she said, thinking that The Girl was probably not a good name. At least not until she got some new adjectives to go along with it. Maybe The Killer Girl might work, but she did not want any writer narrating her story in the future to waste countless pages on meaningless and confusing pronouns.

"How about Mystery?" suggested Lady Moon, "You are kind of sharing a body with her..."

"I don't know," she said, "it does not feel original. No offence to her, but I don't exactly feel like being her..."

_'I wouldn't want to be you either, you nutless squirrel!' _came the retort from her mind, which she promptly ignored sensing the playful nature behind it.

"You looked up to your sister didn't you?" asked Selene. "What would she choose?"

She looked up from the half-eaten apple to find Selene looking at her, warmth and compassion in her eyes. "I don't know about that anymore."

"Before today, I always looked up to her for being able to do so much with her life at such a young age. She did everything I dreamt of doing. She lived the life I read about in my books. She did what I never could. I wanted to be like her since I was old enough to wish." She looked down at the half-eaten apple in her hand and took another large bite out of it, chewing it slowly while looking at the flames dance in the hearth in front of her. She chewed for a minute, slowly thinking about her words and her feelings. A few more minutes passed while she ate the whole apple, staring into the dancing fire all the while. Selene waiting patiently for her to speak, knowing that her next words would shape her future.

"I used to think that she was perfect," the girl began, tossing the now fully eaten apple core into the flames — '_Don't throw your waste in there, you culture-less shoelace!'_ Mystery had said while mentally smacking her head. — where it burned with a crackle, "but now that I finally have an opportunity to create my own destiny and make my name by myself, I think that I don't wanna follow in her footsteps."

"You see, she was Aarushi. The star of the family. The pride of the community. The perfect example of humanity. The one who everyone wanted to be. I wanted to be that long ago. I wanted to be that till a few hours ago. But now, I don't."

"She was blinding light. I have always been the comforting darkness. She is Fire when I am Ice. She felt like the dawn, while I acted like the dusk. She is red Sunburns, while I am blue Frostbites."

She smiled finally, and slowly looked up at Selene. "She revelled in her Prominence. I shall work from my Obscurity. She was Clarity."

"I am Mist."

_'Cue epic intro music'_ thought the newly dubbed Mist.

_'Drama Queen!'_ Replied the spirit inside her.

"Not to put a damper on your moment," said Selene softly, "but Mist is a male name."

"..."

"..."

"..."

The No-Longer Mist started mentally sobbing while Mystery started braying at the destruction she received. "ONE CHANCE TO LOOK COOL IS ALL I ASK FOR! Is it too much to hope for?" She moaned.

Selene threw a patronizing 'aww' towards her, which had her glaring daggers at her, but it quickly stopped when she said, "You can always be Miss T. That's the same as Mist."

_Misty_ looked up at Selene, all her anger and sadness turned into love, like a kicked pup being offered tasty food.

_'It will also connect with my name!'_ added Mystery. '_We can be Name-Mates!'_

"That's a nice name I suppose," said Misty, "Miss Freeloader also likes it since it's so close to Mystery."

"It's decided then, the newest Sentinel on the team is going to be Misty," said Selene, clapping her hands in a loud booming gesture.

"Don't we have any grand ceremony that needs to be done? Something dramatic and cinematic?" asked Misty raising an eyebrow at Selene. "Not even a performance by some band? Maybe the muses?"

"There used to be such celebrations, but that was way back. That was a time when the Sentinels were not _all_ cloak and dagger. At that time, each of the 12 Olympians, and even some of the other deities that weren't Olympians but were important enough to not be ignored, gave us a champion. Each of them a representative of their patron," she said, smiling wistfully at the days of her prime, "The Sentinels were known by everyone as someone to be feared. We had more than one member in those days, so killing off a member came with a heavy price attached to it. A _very _heavy price." She took a drink from her glass, and stared into the dancing flames, her eyes unblinking, "But those were the old days. This was back when the Gods still had a presence in the mortal world. Nothing has been the same since we retreated into the shadows." She turned to face Misty, her eyes a metallic silver, "More so for people like you..."

"What do you mean?" questioned a curious Misty, her hands now peeling an orange.

"You have been awake for an hour and have been here almost since yesterday evening. Do you not worry about what your parents might be thinking?"

"Fuck," said Misty, and that word seemed to sum up her thoughts pretty precisely. In all of this excitement, she had completely forgotten to cook up an excuse about her absence... and had also forgotten that they would be looking for her in the morning. Something told her however that it was something that she wouldn't have to worry about for long. That the something was in Lady Moon's eyes, was not important.

"Exactly. Sentinels aren't exclusively demigods or nature spirits like the Hunters of Artemis or the other groups. We don't care about your parentage. The selection process done by the Sentience is purely based on eligibility," said Selene. "If you have the potential to make a great Sentinel, the Sentience will come to you. It might fail in predicting whether or not you will make a good Sentinel, but it has a clear way of sensing the potential in people. There have been cases, where the Sentinel was not good enough for her job and gets killed in the first few years of her work. There have also been cases like yours before where people who have not been selected get transferred here, but that was mostly when the first candidate died, and none of them have been boys before," she explained.

"Regardless, all of these eligibility tests ensured that the post was not exclusive to demigods. And because of that, a good number of mortals also got into the celestial world without any warning. They did not have the option of leaving behind everything like demigods to live among the Sentinels. That was when we made _The Ritual,_" said Selene. "It's quite an interesting piece of work. Hecate herself worked on this and counts this spell among one of her greatest masterpieces."

"The function of this ritual is quite simple." She took another sip from the wine glass that seemed to never run out of wine. "It completely erases your existence from the universe."

"WHAT!" shouted Misty.

_'That is actually true,'_ added Mystery. '_I had to leave behind my only family when I joined this field.'_

_'Everyone has one family. There was no need to say 'only','_ Misty said.

Mystery chose to say silent on this rebuke, which frankly shocked Misty a bit.

"It is true. That's why a new Sentinel is asked to give herself a new identity. Their previous identity is wiped off the face of the Earth. Nothing short of a spell to wipe out the Mist could stop this from happening. And as far as I'm aware, nothing of that scale has been made yet," she said, "At least not before we could stop it." She added with a smirk.

"When I went away to send off Artemis from the hospital wing, I activated the ritual sequence. As of today, Tushar Mukherjee is officially just a dream spoilt by a condom."

Misty was quiet when Selene ended her explanation. Too quiet for her liking if she was honest to herself. She had seen her as a boy during the first few hours and his curiosity was honestly an admirable quality in the goddess' eye. He had been this little curious kid who kept asking meaningless questions, not caring about the fact that he had just discovered a brand new world and been made an inseparable part of it. Infact, it looked as if he had expected it to happen all the time. Making him into a Sentinel by using Mystery's spirit and Artemis' help was not something she regretted either. She was short on time and there was too much that the boy would've asked if she'd told him the truth of Siproites.

She did not like to lie. Not at all. But she did what was necessary for the survival of the Sentinels. With only one Sentience left in her order to convert normal mortals and demigods into Sentinels, there was pretty much anything she could've done to help her order survive. She _needed_ to if the Divide was to be kept intact. If not for The Order of the Waves and its Sentinels, the Mist would've torn apart a long time ago. There were too many people trying to do that every single moment, for it to not have broken down.

Putting a compulsion on the boy was a necessary action. She did not like it by any chance, but it was necessary. And had it not been for his overly curious mind's natural resistance to compulsion charms —which was something that she still found weird, because her compulsions were among the strongest possible compulsions in all the pantheons— he would not have to experience so much pain and he would've turned into Misty much sooner and much healthier.

Her goal was achieved in the end, even though it cost a favour to Artemis, and that was the important bit. That Tushar's curiosity and natural intellect had not been crushed by Mystery's presence or the ritual's side effects was something that she found wonderful. And throughout the entire roller-coaster ride that yesterday was, she did not find herself regretting making Misty a Sentinel; the girl did have great things written for her in her future.

But seeing her quiet like that? That was a new experience for her. The ritual had certainly worked on his brain to make it much sharper. His intelligence and wisdom along with his analytic skills had received a boost. All that being combined with his natural curiosity had made the newly formed girl, a power to be reckoned with. A sharp mind with an unconventional way of thinking led to greatness, and she was using every brain cell of hers from what Selene had noticed. Even the few times when their eyes met while Selene explained something, she had never been quiet. She could feel the gears turning inside her mind, she could see the conclusions that Misty was drawing from raw data. And all that time, she had never been _quiet._

_Selene did not like her being quiet._

An eternity passed for Selene before Misty spoke. "Okay," she said and stopped.

She ate another orange slice, took a moment to chew it(too long if you asked Selene) and after spitting one of the seeds into the hearth fire—_Don't do that you spineless reptile, _Mystery said— started to talk again, staring at the flames now, "I was never really attached to them anyways. And given the fact that I'm not allowed out of the house after 10, this Sentinel business wouldn't have worked out from home."

She turned to look at the moon goddess, her eyes playful and not at all sad, "And regardless, my father would've popped an artery thinking of the bill for a medical college instead of an engineering one."

"Oh! Did you want to be an engineer before this?"

"Nah. My father did," replied Misty. "I was planning on being a video game script writer. Spreading joy among young kids all over the world with well written offline RPGs. But that idea is not so popular back home."

Misty had finished the entire orange before Selene spoke again, "So you aren't going to miss your place?"

"Not much anyways. My parents were okay-ish, but nothing that I would feel attached to for the rest of my life. The school can shut down for all I care, I never really learned anything in there anyways," she said. "Besides, the library downstairs looked as if it had a lot of books in it. Especially some rare ones. Would it by any chance, have anything on Newtonian Physics? I did enjoy the subject a lot."

Selene chuckled and made a mental note to look into updating the normal library on the natural sciences the next chance she got; times were changing after all. "I will look for them, and if there aren't I will have some summoned. Any friends you might miss?" she asked.

"Meh." Misty shrugged. "There were two, and I might miss them in the future, but it's not like I can change the situation," she said, slightly sad. "Besides, if they found out that their best friend is now a well-endowed and sinfully hot girl, they might just wet themselves," she joked. "And not in the normal way either."

"All right. Just don't go around running to them! As a Sentinel, you will have to cut off all contact from the old world," Lady Moon said, her metallic silver eyes staring into the flames as if trying to remember some old forgotten mistake. "You are a new person now. An extension of the Order of the Waves. We don't expect you to behave as if you were a stuck up child of Zeus with Athena's spear stuck in your ass, but some discipline and character will be expected of you."

"Did the previous Sentinels ever run off to meet their families or see their loved ones again?" asked the curious soul.

"Normally, all Sentinels go through a very hard and demanding training program. This training lasts over 10 years. Even the lucky quick learners take atleast 10 years to get all the skills needed to be a perfect Sentinel," said Selene.

"This time period ensures that they learn to live without their family and friends. Some did try to run away when they thought I was asleep, but they always returned back. Nobody felt like leaving the life of a Sentinel to go back to their family or friends, the Sentience's choice never made that choice. These visits were mostly allowed until the first three years. After that, I would erect wards around the perimeter that would stop them. They couldn't be allowed to keep visiting their family, after all, it could hamper their training."

"What if someone got past your wards?"

Selene laughed at this, "My dear Misty, if one of the initiates were good enough with warding in their fourth year to break past _MY _wards, and come back without me finding out, then they deserve to see their old family, cause I couldn't be happier with their progress." She took a sip from her Ever-Full glass, something that Misty was going to try and get her hands on. "A few did get past them. A very select few, who deserved to. But they weren't by any chance fourth years. None were below seven. With only one getting out in her eighth year." Her eyes shimmered slightly at the mention of this Sentinel. "Rune was gifted a wardstone by Hecate herself when during her 20th year of duty, she broke into Hecate's temple to recover an ingredient for me. Hecate never found out. And when I sent her an apology note for the informal _borrowing_ of the petals, she came here and gave her wardstone set to Rune." Selene looked at the stars shining above them via the skylight. "She was one of my best pupils."

_'Did you ever try to run out?'_ Misty asked her mind-mate.

_'Once...' _Mystery replied, '_Not to see my family though. I was an orphan and my only connection in the human world was a boy your age. He was two years younger than me, but when I went to visit him in my second year, he got to experience something that you haven't yet.'_

_'Shut Up!'_ Screamed Misty into her mind. '_I don't need to be grossed out by you sexcapdes.'_

"You said _normally _earlier," remarked Misty. "What is going to happen in my case? And what's different about me?"

"Only everything, dearest," replied Selene. "The reason new Sentinels are asked to train for ten years is that they need to find the field that suits them the best and then train in it, along with some compulsory combat training, till they are the best in it."

"No Sentinel till date has been bad in whatever way they chose to fight. That's the result of training under me for ten years," beamed Selene. "You, however, have Mystery with you–"

_'You are the luckiest person on this planet to have me in you,'_ commented Mystery again.

_'IF I am the luckiest person on the Earth, I will definitely find some books in the library that will teach me to shut that loose mouth of yours,'_ replied Misty.

"–and her memories and skills are already in your system, ready to be used by you. No training required. Except for any area you need to specialise in that hasn't been covered by Mystery."

"I don't feel any different apart from a heavier chest... and the absence of a certain body part which I don't wanna think about," said Misty. "Are you sure that Mystery knew anything about combat at all?"

_'I HEARD THAT!'_

_'And here I was thinking the only thing going inside your body were underage boys and not words_,' joked Misty, feeling comfortable enough to make Mystery uncomfortable now.

"Your training will specifically cover that. Right now, all the knowledge is sitting inside your mind, untapped by your consciousness." She raised a hand and an ice spike shot out of it.

And before she knew it, Misty was on the chair, balanced on one arm with her legs in the air, while the knife kept there to cut up the fruits was pointed at Selene's throat.

"See," Selene said smugly, not at all bothered by the fruit knife pointed at her, "your reflexes kicked in at the first sign of danger. However, you need to know how to call upon those skills at your will. Your enemy will not always be so blunt. The next two months will pass trying to teach you how to master Mystery's powers. And  
while you're at it, you can check out the other fields and see if you have a particular knack for anything else," she said. "If I were you, I would check the potions lab first," whispered Selene conspiratorially.

"Fine then," Misty huffed. She got down from her acrobatic pose on the chair, lest she loses control and fall, and sat down on the chair again, fixing her hospital garb in the process. She grabbed another apple and said, "Looks like Mystery can do more than speak innuendo."

Selene turned sharply to Misty, the wine glass in her hand splashing some on the floor because of the jerky movement, "You mean she's still a pervert!"

"Oh yes she is... quite a big one at that."

"Well, I am sorry about that... I believed that the ritual would remove those perversions of hers," Selene said, her left eye twitching wildly, "She is the reason I regret not making the Sentinels be eternal virgins. If only I had another clause in that vow, I would not have to think thrice before speaking every fucking sentence in front of her. What she must be doing to you... I have been the victim of that and much more for over 70 years. Gaia knows how a 15-year-old girl turned out to be so dirty minded in my base."

"You mean she's always been a pervert?" asked Misty.

"Very much so... before she was selected by the Sentience, she used to use her female charms to help her gang of orphans survive on the streets. A roadside inn isolated from civilization on all sides. The perfect place for rapists to commit crimes that would never reach the city. People would get drawn in by her, hoping to get more than normal hospitality, and when they pounced on her to rape her, she would kill them all."

"That's... concerning," was all Misty said.

"Yes, it was. What shocked me was the fact that in her 5 years of using her body as a steak, she had never once missed a mark. She was a perfect assassin. What little skill she had with the knife was almost perfect. She is one of the few who had their specialisation chosen before the third year ended." Selene took a long drink of her wine, longer than Misty thought necessary, and said, "Unfortunetly for me, all those years of baiting had given the girl a tongue that couldn't be washed clean with the water of the Lethe. Believe me, I was a single push away from trying it."

_'Tongues like mine are too slimy to be washed with normal white water anyways. It needs the thicker white water,'_ said Mystery bawdily.

_'How many sailors did you kill before getting that tongue!'_ mind-screamed Misty.

_'Not sure, but somewhere around 69.'_

The smirk that followed was mental. The face-palm was not.

"Please teach me some meditative techniques to block her out," begged Misty to Selene. "I used to be a boy, but none of my friends were half as creative with their words. But since none of my friends were of the crude variety, I can't blame them for it."

"Are normal boys who catcall girls this brash?" asked Misty. "Don't answer that. If you do, then you'll only highlight my introversion."

"I will, you were, I don't know, I won't. In that order," replied Selene.

Misty nodded and threw her second apple core into the dustbin. The hearth was not used this time since Mystery did not like it the last time. She moved her hand to pick another fruit, a banana from the angle of her hand, and stopped.

"Where the fuck is all this food going!" asked Misty, "I have never eaten more than a single apple in my life and now I'm wanting more even after eating two apples and an orange. Where the hell is all this food going to?"

"Your new body," said Selene, "remember that? Horrible ritual? Changed you completely?"

"Okaayyyy... What else changed?"

"You can discover those during your training sessions. I prefer using practical methods for that."

"Okay... Will I be able to do everything Mystery does then?" questioned Misty.

"Yes."

"Can I punch through walls?"

"I guess so. Mystery did that."

"How about a double backflip?"

"Uhh... I think so?"

"Can I go invisible? Hear a butterfly's wing flap? See light in the darkest caves? Feel the universe expanding around me?"

"All right Focus!" interjected Selene before Misty went further. "We'll learn what you can do soon enough. That's what the training room is for. No hyperventilating till then."

"Okay, I won't. But I still have a question," said Misty.

"You don't have a train to catch anytime soon, so you might as well ask me whatever you want to."

"How did you bring Mystery back from death? I thought the underworld was Hades' domain," asked Misty.

"Right you are about that. And following that same thought line, I couldn't call back Marina, who clearly knows more about our current threat than you, me or  
Mystery," Selene said. "What you forget, however, is the past. Back when the Sentinels were the golden heroes of Olympus, we had a lot of push. A lot of it." The glass from which Selene drunk refilled again, how many times it had happened in the last hour, Misty did not remember. "The gods, all of them, granted us favours for taking their champions within our ranks. There were many more Sentiences to go around and grant the same protections to other demigods and mortals, and having actual demigods with a god's blessings was something that would have boosted our powers by a lot. So, of course, being the smart celestial that I was, I did what I had to. I struck a bargain."

"Every Olympian that wanted to have their champion be a member of the Sentinel had to grant the Order of the Waves... special privileges. So in exchange of these special favours, I would perform some specific rituals that were draining on my powers", she said with an overly exaggerated swooning motion, "to configure the Sentiences. These new Sentiences would only choose a worthy champion from their patron Olympian's cream warriors. That did mean that I lost a considerable amount of Sentiences in political bargaining, but our force still got the new additions. A small price to pay for the luxury."

"This did mean that unless I spared a day to undo those modifications, I couldn't use those Sentiences again, but I reasoned that the favours were more valuable and the reverse ritual took only a day and I could basically cut them off from their best champions with this opportunity. One of these favours was from Hades. He might be an anti-social guy, but he was too smart to not take an opportunity when he was offered one. In exchange for having an inside to the planet's best guild, a separate section of the afterlife for dead Sentinels to live in was nothing. Convincing him to let them return to protect the Order in times of need was harder, but you can't win against the Moon. Not when I provided him with such a fine bargain."

"What did you give him?" asked Misty.

"Something that I can't tell you. I have sworn secrecy over the matter." Lady Moon smirked at the young Sentinel's expression and continued. "Regardless, the bargain had been struck and the Sentinels went to the Lunar Plane. A realm in the underworld made specifically for the dead souls of the past Sentinels. You can't access it normally. There are very few ways left to do it. A few lost even to me."

"In the ritual, I called back Mystery from the Lunar Realm to help me protect the Order. It was possible because Mystery served back when there was still a Sentinel wearing the Underworld's badge. Now though, there is none. There hasn't been one to serve with us for many centuries. And since the contract works on the basis of a Sentinel from Hades' rank serving under me, the Sentinels who die now no longer go to the Lunar Plane. They go to the Underworld as all normal spirits do. To be judged and criticised for their deeds."

"If the day arrives when our Order grows stronger again, I could possibly convince Hades to open the gates of the Lunar Plane again. But that would need us to be back to 100% strength again. Something that hasn't happened for many hundred years," said Selene. Taking in a deep breath, she took another sip of the wine. Misty was too socially anxious to ask her if she was addicted to _fine wines_, but even she could tell that Selene had drunk enough at this point to down fully grown men.

"You said that Sentinels used to have more members. Not like now where I am the only living member..." said Misty uncertainly, "What happened to the other Sentinels and their Sentiences?"

"Some were destroyed. By rituals I thought did not exist and which no longer do," said Lady Moon, with a fire in her usually silver eyes. "I never knew how they managed to find those rituals, but I made sure that they won't be using them again."

"Who?"

"Some of the other Sentiences were trapped," continued Lady Moon, ignoring the question put forth by the girl, "by ancient devices that still exist out there. But they ran out of space to capture more anyways. My work was great enough to defeat almost anything. The medallions that did get captured went down destroying the very same devices that trapped them. Some of my Sentinels tried looking for them to bring them back to me and have me rekindle their spark, but nobody found any. A few died trying."

"Even after all this happened, our Order still retained enough strength to hold the favour of most of the gods. All the Olympians were still on our side after all. We were still feared. Those who'd gone up against us had been dealt with brutally. Our reputation still held high and the Order still had some room for regaining its previous high. It all changed, however, when something bad happened. Something that neither I nor my Sentinels could prevent. Something that was so unthinkable and unexpected, that it caught us all off-guard and delivered the blow that turned out to be the downfall of this organisation."

"What was it?" asked a fixated Misty. '_I would brace myself if I were you,'_ warned Mystery.

"I died," Selene said.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: That's it. That's the chapter that took me two months. I know that fillers are boring and sometimes not much productive, but they are a necessary evil. Without them, you would have no foreshadowing or easter eggs to slap your head at. I will definitely try to update quicker now, along with longer updates. But don't blame me if I miss my schedule since 1) I don't have a schedule and 2) People who don't review have no power over my actions.  
**  
**REVIEW!**


	4. Once upon a Time in Ancient Brief

**A/N: The next update. I have no excuses. Only content. Which I hope you will like. And also review. Because reviews motivate me to work faster. Way faster. Review and tell me what changed you'd like to see, and if they do not go against my original planning, they might even make it in the story.**

**Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympiads is the property of Rick Riordan and Disney. I make no claims of ownership or suggest otherwise. This work of fiction is written purely for fun. Please don't sue me. I am broke.  
**

**EDIT: 07/04/2020: 18:36: Corrected a few spelling errors and formatting errors. As always, feel free to inform me if you find any more issues.**

**That was your irregularly scheduled Author's Note. Now back to your fanfiction!**

* * *

**Beans and Bins – A Spilling Story**

* * *

_Hundreds of nautical miles away from the base of the Order of the Waves, in New York City, in a classroom of 10__th__ graders, a group of boys talk._

"Did you read last night's update of the fanfic?"

"Nah!" another replied. "Mom shut the wifi off before I could check it out...I'll check it out today.."

"It's a nice update! The four of us were correct after all!" the first replied.

"Four?" Third said. "Who's the fourth? We are only three..."

The eyes of the first glazed over, and he shook his head to clear it off the mist that filled his head. "Yeah... three of us," he corrected. "I had a weird feeling that there should be another one of us here... Too little sleep last night I guess..."

"That's probably it. You should get more sleep," Second said, although he too had a weakness in his answer. It cleared up quickly as his eyes glazed over similarly and the mist took away all instances of a fourth friend. "Schizophrenia would make for an interesting origin story, but we have already read enough of those... Try something classier next time. Maybe dead parents."

One and Three laughed with Two. "Speaking of parents," began One, "have you heard about the commotion in my neighbourhood? The one about the Wonder Girl?"

"That girl that has the most beautiful eyes and the darkest hair that you have ever seen? The one with a deer's grace and a peacock's pride? The one you have a crush on?" Second asked, eyes rolling in disbelief at his friend's crush on his neighbour's daughter.

"She got even sexier," One replied, a smug smile lighting his face daring them to ask him 'How'. Both knew that they shouldn't, but the Geek Code required them to make sure that they properly, theatrically, and dramatically, responded to all prompts by any fellow Geek. Woe was them.

"How did that happen?" Third inquired, carving out his gamer id on his desk with a compass, looking not the least bit interested in finding out more about the girl his friend was never going to get.

"She got sent to a hospital in the morning. Restrained by three nurses. Kept screaming about someone that her parents had somehow killed or gotten rid of."

"What!?" exclaimed Two, earning a glare from the Trigonometry teacher at the head of the class.

"Yeah... Kept screaming something about her brother not being home. Nothing makes a girl hotter than a tragic backstory. Lost brothers are a classic. Some imaginary boy named Tushar..."

* * *

_"Even after all this happened, our Order still retained enough strength to hold the favour of most of the gods. All the Olympians were still on our side after all. We were still feared. Those who'd gone up against us had been dealt with brutally. Our reputation still held high and the Order still had some room for regaining its previous high. It all changed, however, when something bad happened. Something that neither I nor my Sentinels could prevent. Something so unthinkable and unexpected, that it caught us all off-guard and delivered the blow that turned out to be the downfall of this organisation." _

"_What was it?" asked a fixated Misty. 'I would brace myself if I were you,' warned Mystery._

_"I died," Selene said. _

"Riiiight!" Misty droned, throwing an orange seed lying on the table, at Selene, who moved her hand so it collided with the glass instead. "Try to fool someone else, this mind is not so easy to fool. You are sitting right in front of me! I have touched your hand on more than one occasions and last I checked, I did not take drugs that would have me see illusions of beautiful Greek Goddesses. You are not a mental image, not a hologram and definitely not an illusion cast by hallucinogens that I might have intaken."

_'She's not joking,'_ Mystery spoke. '_She is dead. Perished. Scattered.'_

_'Are you trying to play some elaborate prank? Cause I think nobody has told you about modern pranking methods?' _Misty thought back. '_Fart Cushions are a better idea than this.'_

"I am not joking, Misty," said Selene softly, "and neither is Mystery. She speaks the truth."

"First of all, explain how you are sitting in front of me. I may not know much about magic, but there are some checks that you have to make in order to go for the Ghost-Story angle. And you have passed none of them. Second of all, how do you keep guessing what Mystery is doing!" Misty tapped her knuckles on the table in front of her, playing a rhythm-less tune on it. "For all that you know, we could have been comparing dick sizes!"

_'She knows me better than you do, Misty,' _Mystery said. '_She knows I wouldn't joke at a time like this.'_

"The door to the ritual room broke during the ritual. Why did I not stop you from summoning the Sentience by calming you?" Selene asked, legs crossing over each other and leaning back in her seat.

"Maybe the ritual had you in a body bind of sorts?" Misty answered. "How am I supposed to know?"

"I wasn't. What you see before yourself is a recording of sorts... A memory of my original self. All the rituals that I know are a type of algorithm designed so that I could perform them. Those algorithms allow no room for improvisation. How would the algorithm know what to react with when faced with an unknown variable." Selene took a deep breath. "I am no longer a _being_. As I said, I have been dead for a long time. But even when alive, I was never foolish. Which is why I had left behind a reflection of myself." She drank deeply from her glass and offered it to Misty after refilling it. "Try and drink this," she said.

The girl took the glass and put it against her lips, only for the wine to not pass down her throat. It kept emptying from the glass, but never into her mouth.

Selene smirked and took her glass back from the young Sentinel, "As I said, dead. I am just a program meant to help train the Sentinels." She stood from her seat, walking towards the door. She raised her hand and waved it, beckoning Misty to follow her. They went through the same maze of corridors again. The walls switched between wood, rock, marble and what looked like strawberry-flavoured Jell-O. They walked on through the path Selene chose for them. Misty started counting her breaths to see how long it took them. She was on 210 when they came back into the cavern that Misty, _Tushar,_ arrived in. A distant memory.

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Misty finally asked, the silence getting on her nerves. Her own voice sounded much more different in this empty cavern without the roar of the hearth fire in the background. They were heading towards the door that took them to the ritual room last time. Misty _hoped _that it wasn't back to a boy again or something worse like a werewolf or a wolf... She couldn't tell what would be more painful; growing a longer snout or a longer... organ.

"It is not common knowledge. Only some of the Olympians and pledged Sentinels know. Some other Ancients are aware of this fact, but they have grown too indifferent to the celestial realm to do anything about it. The ones who do care, are bound in chains and inside Tartarus." Selene said. She was in the intricate process of opening and closing the door, which was frankly weird if the ritual room was used more often... Someone had to get tired of all this eventually. The door finally closed shut for the 13th time, and with her new ears, or maybe her new magical channels, Misty could hear or feel a click. From the door or the room, she did not know. But she felt it. Selene finally opened the door to the staircase. Selene let out a slow breath. "At least they were inside till recently."

"I made the Sentiences. Did you not find it weird that I could not reprogram them to break their bond with you? Or rather simply turn you into a girl myself?" Selene asked. Misty nodded weakly, all those gaps in logic becoming clear to her now. Selene never tried to change the Sentinel. Only change her when she was Tushar. She never even tried to tell him during the ritual that she was not doing a possession ritual. It all made sense to her now. The silver fire in her eyes, her indifference to her pain, the obvious absence of more Sentinels or Sentiences despite the fact that she could've made more any time she desired. Her night had been one hell of a roller-coaster ride, and when compared to that, this fact seemed oddly appropriate. She might have made a pretty large logic leap when she first came here. But now that Selene had pointed those problems out, she couldn't help but realize that 'Yes, all of them were much more practical solutions.' But the reason behind all that trouble being a dead mentor seemed oddly weird and frustrating. She could have gotten some fresher trope. Undead Mentors weren't exactly all that they were showed up to be.

A sad twist about her Wise Old Wizard. After all, every hero needed a Wise Old Wizard with a terrible secret that would haunt the Wizard for life and motivate him/her to train and prepare the hero for the great evil that was about to strike the land.

Yes. It did make sense to Misty. She might have had her brain grown back, but her memories of her fascination with fantasy stayed the same. And she could see very clearly where this ride was going to take her. She was going to be the epic protagonist of her own book now! That much had become apparent to her since she had woken up and found herself with boobs. But now, her story had become much more interesting. Much more interesting indeed.

She could not tell Selene about that, however. No reason to make her think that her latest recruit had a penchant for the cinematic. From what she had heard, the Sentinels were supposed to be precise and brutal in their work. Telling her that she enjoyed the theatricality and flair of this new twist in her origin story might cause Selene, or Ghost Selene now if that is what she preferred, to alter her training plan to break it out of her.

If she already did not know about it. The woman was scary sometimes with the kind of insight she showed in her thoughts. Too scary if she might say so herself.

"How did you die?" Misty asked curiously.

"I honestly have no idea."

"WHAT!" Misty shouted, completely sidetracked by the answer.

"There are many ways in which a celestial can be killed. Take Ouranos for example."

"Cut up by his sons and scattered into so many pieces that he might never return. They broke his essence. His very conscience was cut into and because of that, he ceased to be. He still exists up there, but never to wake up and be sentient. Then there are the ones who are replaced."

"Helios," Misty replied almost immediately. _Her Brother. _They had finally reached the bottom of the stairs and were looking out over the destruction that had happened last night. The door to the Ritual Room was broken down after the Sentience's powers were put to test by the ritual. There was no quick recovery for that room. Selene was going to have to contribute a lot of time and effort into making sure that the Ritual Room worked again. Without it's magically insulated door, it wouldn't be possible to use it. And even if she could rebuild the room with the door back on its hinges, she would still have to wait for it accumulate dormant energy from the resident Sentinel and her magic. She could try and divert some power from the base to the room, but it would have to be very slow to ensure that a surprise attack wouldn't catch them off-guard. The only rituals that would happen in this room for a long time were going to be the simpler ones that Misty and her successors could individually power; the ritual room was too weak to help them. All because one of her creations was stronger than her other creation.

"Right you are," Selene said, smiling sadly at the memory. "When Apollo was born to Zeus, he was given the seat of Helios. It was a wise decision no doubt. Our kind, me and Helios, were getting old. Unfit for field duty. I did not have many besides me driving the moon chariot. And my Sentinels could do that for me sometimes while I looked after the Order. But he had no one. The Sun Chariot is much more draining the Moon chariot, for reasons that should be obvious to you. And he had no one to help him in this task. The one time he did take someone's help, he almost destroyed half of Earth. Regardless of stupid sons, he was growing weaker. He needed a break. And so did I, to be honest."

"Which was why you readily gave up your domains to Apollo and Artemis," Misty said. They were walking past the Ritual Room, and towards the various shelves that lined the walls. Selene would occasionally stop to check whether a particular book was what she thought it was, and would occasionally pull a book out to carry with her.

"Yes," Selene said. "It was not an unwise decision. We still had some more domains to look after, and we were given a break from something that was getting too much for us. None of us anticipated his death."

"I, on the other hand, was not as feeble. I might have lost purpose and believers, but I still had my Sentinels binding me to this plane. They would not let me fade. Neither would the apparent faith the gods had in me for the protection of the Divide. I was smart, much smarter than my brother gave me credit for. I held my seat when others could not. Rome had brought about a change in civilization and in ideals. Many like Athena and Hestia had fallen. But not me. I survived. I thrived in the darkness and came out of it stronger." Lady Selene turned back and looked at Misty. Her arms full of books, her shoulders loose and her neck held high; she looked very much like an empress that moment. A very beautiful empress. Misty almost blushed, but held back the blood that wanted to flow into her cheeks, and instead focused on their environment. The Observatory, they were inside it.

"How _did _you die then?" Misty asked, disbelief covering her voice.

"I don't know. As I said before, I honestly have no idea."

"I told you about my existence. How I am a spell taken form. A memory of the original Selene. I am made for the sole reason of looking after the continuation of our order. I am made out of a memory of Selene, through an intricate ritual that gave me, a mere thought, a vessel to move about in. Every year, Selene would take all that she had learned and transfer it into my vessel. I would come a step closer to her every year at that night. I had not been released yet, so I could only lie around in my container, a womb if you can call it that, waiting for my maker to return and gift onto me her memories and personality. To make me more alive."

"I was her contingency plan. If anything ever happened to her, or me I suppose, one of the Sentinels would release me. That would ensure that the Order would always have someone to train it."

"What went wrong then?" Misty said. They had taken a seat on the tables that lined the room around the big watching crystal or 'telescope' that was in the centre of the room. She could tell that the tables were not actually made to study since the bottom of the chairs was too hard, and the lighting in the room was a performance disaster. Why couldn't the gods get LED lights instead of using roof crystals... some eyes might be spared. And maybe some butts too.

Selene took a deep breath. She was opening the books and placingseveral red ribbons in different places as bookmarks. Misty did not know why she did that but paid attention to what she said anyway, "I was not the first contingency plan. In fact, if my memories have not been tampered with, I was the last. The worst-case scenario so to speak. I was never supposed to happen. I was simply supposed to stay in my container, content to experience life through the eyes of my maker every year."

"But, in between the time that I got my yearly memory transplant, and I was awakened, something happened. Nobody knows what. I was released fifteen fortnights after I got my latest set of memories. And those had no indication of anything going wrong or any hidden enemy lurking in the shadows. But when I was brought out of sleep so soon, and that too by a half-dead Sentinel, I knew something was wrong."

"I woke up to find the entire Order wiped out. No survivors. No bodies. Just the totems lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The one that brought me out had already traveled to Hades before I could ask her anything. I was left alone in the Order, with no more than four devices, trying to recreate an Order that was fabled to be undefeatable."

"I take it that the undefeatable fable was false?" Misty asked slowly. The books laid forgotten between the two.

"I think so too. But my life after I woke up went downhill pretty quick. When the other gods found out that their champions had died, all of them at the same time and without any evidence of what killed them, they were enraged, furious would be too small a word. They summoned me and asked me about what happened. I was not as strong as my original celestial self. Not even close to her in fact. So when the gods saw a much weaker Selene walk into Olympus, one that could not even resist speaking the truth in front of Apollo, they grew suspicious. They sent the younger ones away and the Elder Olympians questioned me themselves. They found the truth about me. They lost their faith in my Order."

"How could they not!" spat Selene. "They trusted the _Celestial Selene_. I was a mere reflection of hers. A nobody. Nothing beyond an impressive bit of magic. And despite my reasoning that I was made from her very memories, they refused to believe me. I had very little magic, very little when compared to a normal celestial. They took that as a sign of weakness. There was nothing that I could have done that might have changed their minds. A few, like Poseidon, Hestia, Hera and Aphrodite were on the fence. They were too cautious, smart, or cunning to lose faith in anyone with half of my skills, or at least the memory of using those skills, like that. But the Council ended up voting against me. Even losing by a single vote is losing. Hera had to follow Zeus in his steps and was forced to vote against me. Hestia no longer had any seat to speak of in the Elder Council, and the Olympians were too drunk on their own pride to heed her wisdom. Without Athena and Artemis to temper their fits of anger, the rest voted against me too. I was banished from Olympus, to live my life in the Sanctuary. They took back their totems for safekeeping. _Objects of such immense powers were not safe to be kept by someone so unworthy as me_, they told me and I had no way of reversing the enchantments on them that attuned them to specific Olympians. I lacked the energy to do it. As they said, I was too weak," snorted out Selene. "And even if I could somehow reverse them, I had no Order to speak of. The Sentinels were all dead. I had no one to back me up against a full-blown war against the Olympians if it came to it. I, alone, could not fight against all of the Olympians. At least not without forming a proper Order first."

"Did you do it then? Form a proper army of Sentinels and revolt against the Olympians?" asked Misty.

"I won't lie to you... I did think of it twice. I think that down there in the main library next to the Ritual Room, one of the alcoves will even have a plan for overthrowing them," Selene said, pointing her finger in the general direction of the door as if Misty could find a single book among the hundreds of others that rested there. "But I could never follow through with it." She took a deep sip from her wine ('_When did she call her glass back', _Misty asked_. 'When you were looking at the bookshelves,'_ Mystery replied), her breath hitched and her lip curved into a frown. "I had nothing. No troops. Very few powers. Out of the four Sentiences that were left with me in the cavern, two were retrieved by their respective Elder Council members; Hera and Aphrodite. Their champions were still learning in the Sanctuary at that time, and their totems were still with me. Taking away the Sentiences was well within their rights according to the agreement that was first drawn up. The rest of the Olympians and the other deities summoned theirs from wherever they were; all thoughts about finding out what had slain the entire Order Of Waves forgotten. Even after collecting all of my totems from around the world, I was still left with a meager eight. Not exactly the optimal task force when thinking of fighting against an Empire. So I bid my time, hoping that once I got them back on track, the Olympians would somehow see the fault in their judgement, see how wrong they were to not trust me."

"But it would seem, very obviously, that the Fates, in their infinite, invincible, and irrefutably supreme wisdom, were not done with me this soon." Selene mused, with that heavy tone of hers that would drown people and flood carpeted hallways in raw sarcasm.

"I had been cursed," Selene began again in her melodious horror story voice, "banished to my Sanctuary. I had no way of breaking past these walls and gathering new recruits for my cause. No way of finding any other totems that might still be buried with their last owner, unable to fulfil their function of finding a new recruit without the body of their previous host. I was lost. I did not have all the powers that Lady Selene had. If I had, then I would have somehow powered a counter-curse to break the barrier around the Sanctuary and gone off to the outside world to do my job."

"But you can go outside..." Misty reasoned, "You went out to check on Marina, and you also took me out while trying to get the Sentience to separate from me. What was that about?"

"That was about me finding a solution," Selene smirked at the glass she was holding, a proud and boastful smirk, aimed at spiting all the Olympians who had sought to bind her in the first place. "I was not a simple memory; a reflection of someone's thoughts and powers. They were foolish to think I was. I did have a concrete body and even independent thoughts that would make me sentient. Not just a pre-recorded computer program. Most of my actions were independent —except for certain actions which I can't do my way cause of reasons, like rituals and more complex magicks. Hence, I had the only thing I needed to escape. My mind and its craftiness."

"So I assimilated myself with the Sanctuary. Made the consciousness and energy that was put inside me go into the very walls that were housing me, binding me. I joined the two of us, made us both, together and apart at the same time."

All that Misty could do at this point, was nod along regardless of however much of Selene's passion talk got through her brain. Mystery advised her to not disturb her when she is in the middle of '_Another one of those Drunken Rants_'.

"With my soul tied to the Sanctuary, all methods of tracking me would result in tracking the Sanctuary. Meaning, I could stay out of the barrier for as long as I wanted, have as much fun as I wanted, and nobody, not even Artemis herself, could discover me." Selene, celestial Moon goddess that she was, looked at Misty, expecting her to shower her with praises. Misty, however, had different plans...

"You just told me that you could not gather enough energy to power a spell that could break the barrier... But the Ritual Room was full of dormant energy... Enough of it to keep me from rolling down the Styx this very moment... Why did you not use it? You would have only needed some of it, and it would have gathered back eventually once you found new recruits and/or extra medallion thingamajigs."

Selene sighed and reminded herself that a curious recruit who could think for herself was better than an idiot who only followed orders. Once she had ensured herself that she could condition Misty into acting dramatic at moments, she spoke, "I could not. Breaking the curse would mean announcing to the others that I was rebelling. But I couldn't do that. Not this early in the game. Not without the complete energy levels that the original Selene had. And to answer your other question, I did use the energy of the ritual room. I used it to bypass the barrier. Just think what would happen to me if I would leave all of my energy and my soul behind... how would I travel out of this place without any magic to speak of?"

" That's where I got crafty. The barrier around this place was built to make sure that I could not get out. To do that, they tied the wardstones to my energy signal. So the barrier would come up every time the wards recognized my energy coming closer. So I put all of my energy into the Room, where it would remain awaiting my return, while my body was filled with the energy from the Ritual Room, something which the barrier was not made to stop. Similar to wearing a fake face to get past a guard. I fooled the barrier into thinking that I was not who I was. Hence, I could move around freely while using the energy from the ritual room, while the Olympians would find that all their tracking spells pointed at the Base. Because tracking spells, unlike barriers were based on finding one's soul. So bonding my soul to the Sanctuary ensured that I did not get caught in the act by Artemis or someone else."

"Okayyy... I think I am understanding what you are trying to say..." Misty began, " But why didn't the gods create a barrier anchored to your body or your soul... And you keep using that word soul... Do you really have one? Do I have one?" she questioned.

"Souls are... they are something which is normally hard to comprehend for mortals. Everyone has one. But not all of us can control them. Your soul is basically the receipt of your existence. All your actions, all your memories, all your skills. Everything compressed into one idea. Immortals such as me and other Olympians can split, or more accurately project, our souls at different locations at the same time into another body. This allows us to exist in many places at the same time, which gave birth to the theory of omnipotence. So yes, we all have souls and it is not what the scams think it is. It is simply the collection of all of your memories and abilities. And people who have a lot of memories and energies can send them on long-distance milk runs."

"My Stats page in the video game of my life," Misty added, quite astutely.

"I think so... except much more complicated than whatever these video games are... Manipulating your souls is not an easy action. And definitely not a safe one. Immortals take a century just to project theirs a few hundred kilometres away. Doing it inside an unwilling or unfamiliar vessel is even harder," Selene said. "But we practise it day and night and do it regardless, mostly because it is cool to spook random mortals by possessing their wives or sons."

"Regardless of that, getting back to your question, creating a barrier for a soul is not easy. That would require making sure that all fragments of my soul are in one place. If you make a barrier for a soul that is currently split, it might break when the user simply calls back all his consciousness." Selene had by now finished setting those bookmarks in place in almost all books but she hadn't told Misty what it was about. She put in another long ribbon and continued as if she hadn't just said that all gods were making phylacteries, "Hence, making soul-based barriers were impractical in some cases since gathering all the soul fragments is not easy. And all soul fragments in any body anywhere on the Earth share the knowledge that they currently hold. So it would be easy to have yourself outside the barrier working on getting yourself out. If that makes any sense..."

"It does," Misty said. "What about you? You are also a soul fragment, albeit one that isn't reliant on Original Selene to survive. Do changes register in your soul fragment? Is that why you can't modify rituals? If you couldn't soul project, then why didn't they make a soul-based anchor?"

"The spell used by my original version was ingenious because it somehow made me a different being from her. Gave me the power to modify the soul knowledge that she placed into me, without changing the original. Made me a separate being, no matter the weakness of my magical channels. And regardless of my pseudo-birth, I still had almost all of the memories of the original so I would have no problems in learning the basics like all the others had to. Learning Astral Projection was easy. It took some energy from me, but it was easy after all the work that Celestial Selene had already done for me. So yes, the stuff I do today does register as changes in my body."

"And the reason behind me not being able to modify rituals is more magical than spiritual. Maybe you'll learn the subject someday. As for the soul-anchor, attaching a soul-based ward scheme to the barrier would mean creating a ward which could record the constant change happening. A mechanical combination lock that would update itself every time the object inside fancied a change in the combination. A barrier that could somehow record every single minute change in my soul. Does that not seem pretty difficult to you?" Selene asked Misty.

"I think it does... the barrier would have to account for each and every minor change in your soul... Which does sound pretty tough to me... The rules for the wards would have to be pretty specific..."

"Exactly! And the gods were not taking my case into account. Normal immortals can easily bypass a soul barrier by projecting a copy of their soul outside the barrier while performing an action that would forever change it. That would cause the barrier to note two different types of souls, one mid-flight, where it cannot be changed or register any change that was happening, and one mid-change. The ward would register two different souls and get confused between them. This would cause it to overload and self destruct. Back then, my soul had not matured enough to learn the art. And if the Olympians had had the insight to lock me in without the correct materials, I would have never learned. Which was why making soul-based anchors was not a good idea when it came to immortals who are well-versed in the art of Astral Projection," Selene said.

"We instead tie the ward stone to the energy signal of the captive, to make sure that the barrier would not let them in. When trying to keep someone out, the ward stones are configured to allow only the person with a particular energy. That is how the Sentience brought you in here. It would cloak you in its energy to make sure the Sanctuary's wards would not affect you—had it been a normal demigod as I earlier assumed you were, he would've been fried by my wards long before he made it in here."

"Getting back to the topic though," Selene said, nodding at Misty, "My trick worked. The soul being tied to the Sanctuary made sure that I could not be tracked by simple tracking spells and with my body playing host to foreign energy, I could easily walk past the barrier. I could roam outside as much as I wanted so long as I kept in mind that I reserve some energy to get me back to the Sanctuary... lest I have to walk back here bare-footed... and be blocked by the barrier... and be detected by the Olympians..." Selene shook her head at the liberties she took with her crazy scheme.

"I think I understand now..." Misty slowly said. "Can I try this Soul Projection thingy?"

"Not this soon, Misty. Your soul is too small now. Too small entirely. You don't have enough memories and experience to make it large enough to split it like us. Maybe if you combine it with Mystery's and get a couple of other Sentinels to join in, it could be possible. But until then you risk getting scattered if you try doing it," Selene explained. "And it is called Astral Projection, not Soul Projection. Celestial Projection if you want to be a snot-nosed brat who believes that only celestials could do it."

"We strayed a bit off-topic, didn't we?" Misty said clearing her throat a bit, scratching the back of her head while sprouting a silly grin that showed exactly how sorry, (read Un-Sorry) she was about the whole thing.

"Don't worry, I like curious souls," Selene answered, chuckling at the antics of her newest recruit. The books were almost all done now, and Selene was gathering them and organizing into three neat piles. Misty wondered what it would be about but dared not ask in favour of knowing more about the past. So she instead picked up a different tangent and went on towards the past.

"I get it all now I guess... but what happened next? And why tell me now that you were dead? Why not keep it a secret from everyone?"

"Once I was free of the barrier, I moved to the outside world. Spending a few months at a time in locations where the Sentinels could have been. Sometimes I would find the artefacts, sometimes I would just find dried up blood. I never forgot to return to the base of course. I needed to maintain a certain level of energy if I wanted to wander outside without my soul." The books were done, but Selene did not take her eyes off of them. She looked as if she was half-tempted to lean back into the chair, but wouldn't because Misty was sitting there. Her voice picked up the same tone she used when talking of her banishment.

"I would occasionally hear rumours of girls in the wilderness or in some remote village who would do great things. I would hand them my spare Sentiences and perform the binding ritual on them manually to set the Sentience's functions back on and recruit new members. I would spend my time between training these recruits and finding out about what laid devastation to the Order and the original Selene. Sadly, I never found more."

"The new recruits I found, did not know of the fact that I was not the original Selene but a clever memory of her existence created to help the Order in her absence. They would take the tales they read in the books of my prowess quite literally. Why wouldn't they?!" explained Selene, eyes staring down at the floor, every word being spoken heavily with sorrow tainting every syllable. "Which was what led to their downfall..."

"The fools started a ritual. One which would remove the attunement charms over the Olympian totems. Unfortunately, that ritual needed me to be completed. They did not know that I was not as strong as my parent celestial. That I was a mere replica and not the real deity. They ended up exploding, taking away the mystick energy from their Sentiences along with their life forces."

"They died," Lady Moon said, looking up at Misty, "and took more Sentiences with them."

The next few minutes were spent in relative peace as Misty tried to look anywhere except for Selene's slightly, completely sad and disappointed face. She could understand her plight in a way. She could have either told all of the earlier recruits that she was just a memory and risk the word spreading and a decrease in morale and an increase in the number of potential enemies. Or she could have kept the truth to herself as she did and made sure that they received the same level of education and training that the others before them did. Make sure that they became the fearsome warriors that every member of the Order was supposed to be. The lies about her supposed strength might even have boosted their spirits a bit too. After all, who would not want to be remembered by a legendary Moon goddess as one of her favourites. She too would have tried to impress Gandalf had he been her mentor. She could only imagine what the others were thinking. It was not wrong of the seven to try and perform a ritual that would boost their strength. They were, before everything else, Sentinels. And a Sentinel was supposed to be perfect in whatever field that specialised in. Any of the seven could have been a ritual master and could have performed her duties fantastically. There was no doubt about that.

But assuming that Lady Selene would get happy when she would find that the ritual was half-way done and provide them with the last component to finish it was a bit too... well weird after finding out that she was not at full power all along. A completely unfortunate incident that ended up being catastrophic for everyone concerned; all because people assumed a lot of stuff. Which was why Misty understood why Selene decided to tell everyone else the truth from then on. It made sense when knowing that a simple speech could prevent future Ritual Masters from trying stuff out without asking her permission first.

"Since then, I have informed all new recruits about my _condition_, if you could call it that. I haven't found any more devices since then to help me recruit new ones, nor have I been able to make new ones. Things have been pretty much normal since then— if you can call stopping schemes of conquering Olympus every month normal. The ritual to improve your body was the first out of schedule thing I have done since a long time, even the uprising of Titans that I sent Marina to discover was less weird when compared to that. Uprisings happen a lot. The X'etessi Ritual is not something I perform every decade. It was probably performed for the first time after 489 BC."

"Does that make me special?" Misty asked.

"Sort of. Just an oddity from the daily drag" answered Selene. "What is special about you is that you get the chance to host the spirit of a Sentinel of Past. You had the misfortune to be... I wouldn't say recruited, but at least get caught up in this drama at the wrong stage."

"But you just said that uprisings were a monthly thing. Should I be concerned?"

"The answer to that is not as simple as it seems. We deal with uprisings a lot. But most of them are stopped before they have a chance to truly progress. Weeding the trouble makers before any permanent damage is done is a very effective policy. Unfortunately, the troublemakers this time are the experienced kind."

"What was the last thing that Marina told your sister? A message for me, correct?" Misty nodded and Selene continued, "Could you repeat those words? I am sure you remember them."

_Take it! Take the Sentience! You must be the Sentinel. Warn the others... the old one is stirring. Tell Lady Moon to awaken the council. You must save them._

The words entered her mind almost automatically, unwillingly even, echoing in the mind as if in a cavern. She relayed them to Selene as she had done last night, a night that seemed centuries away. Only this time she knew what they meant. An uprising from the Titans. The Old One, Kronos, rising after what must have been the first time in forever.

"I am assuming that you already know what that means, don't you?" Lady Moon said, her eyes flashing either with challenge or warning, Misty had trouble discerning which. "You have at your disposal the skills and memories of one of my best assassins. I don't know how useful that will be to you, as only you are going to be going out in the field to fight the rebellion, but know this: The Order of Waves did not exist openly during the pre-Olympian ages. Kronos would destroy all civilization rather than hide from it. He knows nothing about the importance of the Divide. He grew up without it and is going to prefer his empire to be in a world without the Divide present. This is against what the Order of the Waves stands for. Everything we ever fought for will be reduced to ashes. There is no other alternative. We either stop Kronos, or we die."

"The uprising has already begun. If you had not been chosen in place of your sister, I would not have thought of going as far as sending for Mystery from the Moon Realm. **IF** that had happened, your sister would have had to train for over 10 years for mastering the skills which you are supposed to master in one. Without you, the victory of the Titans would have all but assured. Nothing sort of a miracle worker could have stopped the Titans. The gods are too stupid to train champions in this day and age. They rely on Camp Half-Blood for demigod reinforcements. It is their own little charity project. Something that they think makes up for years of neglect and foolishness. But I guess that is what you can expect from inbreds."

"What is Camp HalfBlood?" questioned Misty.

"A training camp or residence for the children of the gods. For demigods. They are like us. Except less trained and more wild," explained Selene. "Sometimes the camp finds a gem who is worth one of my Sentinels when it comes to skill. But it is nothing on my 100% success rating. Some of the older ones are smart enough to keep their nose down and survive long enough after going on their one obligatory quest. The young ones have delusions of grandeur and often die before the age of 15. A bad public school if you ask me."

"And that summer camp is the only reinforcement I will have against a Titan Lord older than the king of Olympus... Isn't that just swell!?" Misty intoned, sarcasm colouring her tone. "What about the other gods? The Romans and the Egyptians? Maybe the Indian ones will help..."

"The Roman gods are just another part of the essence of the Greek ones. A rare incidence of Astral Projection misfiring and creating separate identities in the same person. It isn't like me, the Roman gods don't get new bodies and independence, but they hold a separate set of ideals from their Greek opposites and will probably act in a completely different way. And as such, their solution to the rising security threats in a world lacking in Sentinels was another Camp Half-Blood, although a bit better equipped," Selene explained. "They call it Camp Jupiter and run it tight as a military camp. The city where it is, New Rome, holds better prospects for demigods than Camp Half-Blood. A great retirement home if I ever decide to retire."

"_If that four-footed bitch would let me go in," _Selene added silently. Misty pretended as if she did not hear what she said, but she was going to ask Mystery a lot of questions when they were free.

_'I hope I get some favours in return,'_ Mystery seductively whispered in her ear. Misty suppressed a smile. She was going to have to do something about this she-devil.

"So a bunch of hormonal teenagers with no organisation and a bunch of brainwashed teenage soldiers. The world will depend on them to survive if I don't manage to stop the Titan Lord from rising," Misty summarised.

"Yes. No pressure or anything," Selene said. The voice that flooded carpeted hallways in sarcasm was back. Misty wished it wasn't.

Her left eye twitched at this, but she chose not to comment on that since she did not want to offend the woman who was going to train her for the coming month. Her new brain would probably help her catch up to any insanity that she might think up, but she did not want to be the one to give her a reason to think up more insane bullshit for her to defeat. No one knew what an alcoholic loner Moon goddess who had authority issues might cook up in her spare time.

"What are these books for?"

"Your crash course in Being A Sentinel 101 starts tomorrow morning. These books are your assigned reading material. Read the marked chapters every day after training. You have very little time and a lot of work. The world isn't going to save itself," Selene said. "But for now, you can go to sleep. You haven't fully recovered yet, and it has been a long talk. You can rest for the day. The books will be in your room later. Sleep. Read. Do whatever you want. Maybe try out your new clothing. It will be quite different from what you wore as a boy."

"And I am sure Mystery has been whispering lots of temptations in your mind about stuff she wants to teach you, so you can go and learn something extra-curricular as well," Selene said coyly. "But no going outside the main building. And ask Mystery to help you reach the bedrooms; understanding the Sanctuary's room planning will take some time."

With all that drama over, and most of the Sanctuary's layout clear to Mystery, Misty headed towards her bedroom. With her belly full of fruits and her body full of sleep, she wanted nothing more than to slip into something a bit better than those hospital garbs and then sleep for some more hours. Stronger physique or not, she was still not ready to take those godly levels of torture. The fact that the need to explore her body was urging her to walk faster, aided by a sultry Mystery giving her tips on what to do, was absolutely unappealable and irrevocably false regardless of what anyone might say. She was going to deny those claims no matter what anyone said. And she was going to ensure that Mystery learned to keep her mouth closed when under the gaze of a mindreader.

The fact that Selene had known what she was thinking was pushed to the side by her mind before she could question it. Teenage horniness came first.

* * *

Admiring one's own body in the mirror for the first time is a weird concept. When that body looks like you, but from the opposite sex, things start getting a bit weird. But Misty had bigger problems in her hands at the moment.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do with these!" she said, her hands trying to adjust her new breasts inside a bra.

_'Don't squeeze it so much,' _Mystery contributed,_ 'that's a job for another time of the day.'_

"You aren't helping!" Misty screamed out loud, desperately trying to reach back and close the strap.

"Bloody hell I am going to die this way! Somebody get me a smaller rack! I'll ogle myself in another life!"

_'I told you to close it before putting it on.'_

"_NOT HELPING!"_

And as Misty and Mystery stared into the mirror, watching their newly acquired body, with an unstrapped bra hanging off of their left shoulder, they realized that it was going to be a long two months. Two very long months. '_Insert long-drawn-out sigh.'_

_'Stop 3__rd__ person-ing my life, Mystery!', _Misty mind-shouted at her menant(mind tenant).

* * *

**A/U:**** And we are done with another chapter. Hopefully, the next one will be here faster. If only I had reviews that told me to write... Shame. Regardless, the people who were hoping for some bedroom action will have to go elsewhere. I won't be writing smut unless I am really desperate and/or in the mood. And I am in neither of those conditions now.**

**(PLEASE REVIEW!)**


	5. Epic Training Montage

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**** Hello again! I am not dead! And it is a surprise to me as well! Here's your new chapter! Have fun reading it! Why was I late? Lemme see... (checks list) I had to get eggs for Mom. That's why I'm late. If you have any issues, take it up with the lady!**

**To the reviewer who mentioned the lack of formatting to signify mental conversations: Remedied.**

**There is also a lemon scene at the end. Now this won't be an everyday thing. I rated the story M mainly because of the sexual overtones and the language so future chapters might have mild suggestive content or straight-out sex scenes as shown in this chapter. For the ones who have a problem with lemons. The scene is at the end and you are free to skip it. I have marked it down as well. The others can read it.**

**I also updated the previous chapters since I had missed a lot of spelling errors for some reason. The plot hasn't changed and neither has the wording so don't worry about missing anything.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Rick Riordan and Disney does. This story is not for the sake of making any profit. It is for the sake of earning reviews. Which I am waiting for. Eagerly.**

**THAT'S IT! ENJOY!**

**(runs away before anyone manages to hit me)**

* * *

**Epic Training Montage**

* * *

"Normal Talking"

_'Mental Conversations/Thinking'_

"_Radio Talk"_

**'Magic Speak'**

* * *

_Date: 19__th__ May 2005_

_Location: Middle of nowhere_

_Time: 0200 hours_

"_Red-Nine, this is White-Cross, Come in."_

"_Red-Nine, here."_

"_Target is heading your way. Are you ready?"_

"_Roger. Standing by."_

A figure clad in grey clothes snaked an arm to the insides of her cloak and brought out a stiletto wrought from a black metal. Tossing it to her right arm, the young sentinel held it in a reverse grip, peeked over the edge of the ledge, watching as the motorcade drove her way, ready to pounce. Thigh muscles tensed themselves and loosened a moment later. A leaf, brown and wrinkled, fell from a branch. Swaying from the weak gusts of wind, it landed on the cold earth with nary a sound. The leaf had not yet rested upon the ground fully when the sentinel leaned over the edge and let herself free-fall over the edge. Unlike the leaf, she landed on top of the 10-seater limousine with a dull thud as the car entered the tunnel. A glass panel slide over the roof of the car and a bald man popped his head out holding a sub-machine gun in his hands. Looking at the young girl with a bored face standing on the roof of the speeding car, he did what many in his place would've done. Quite stupidly too one might add.

He widened his eyes and checking to make sure that the safety on the weapon had been switched off, he began shooting at her in measured bursts of five. Not one to be stunned by such a stereotypical reaction, the sentinel leapt over the barrage of bullets headed towards her heart. Twisting her body while in the air, she extended an arm towards the guard still trying to pump her full of holes, and with a jerk of her wrist shot a small knife at her assaulter. The knife flew straight, cutting the air as it flew and made its home in the left eye-socket of the man holding the gun. Screaming upon finding a knife hilt-deep in his eye, the man dropped the gun and fell down the sunroof. The Sentinel meanwhile, landed on the roof of the car again, and after wasting a third of the second getting her body in sync with the relative velocity of the speeding and swerving car, brought her right hand, still holding the black stiletto, down in an arc on the roof of the car. The blade went through the roof of the car and managed to bury itself till its hilt. The sentinel jerked it once to make sure that it was secure and fell off the side of the car while still holding onto the dagger.

Now hanging off the side of the car, with only a dagger stopping her from becoming roadkill, she took a moment to check her reflection in the blacked-out windows. Using her only free hand to tuck a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, she deemed her visage camera-friendly and smacked the soles of her boots against each other causing two-inch-long spikes to come out of the tips of the shoes. Pushing against the car door with her feet, she jumped back a bit and gave herself some momentum and managed to lodge the spikes into the door of the car on the way back, giving her an efficient foothold and taking some pressure off of her hand. Raising her left hand and bringing it up to the window, she politely knocked on it and waiting for it lower.

The window lowered itself showing her the insides of the car. A man in a white suit sat covered by two bulky men, each aiming a gun at her. The guards were both surprised to find a girl, who didn't even look 18, hanging on the side of the door with one hand. They guessed the hand that was missing was near the knife that had somehow managed to get through the roof of the car. But despite the surprise they felt, they showed none of it; faces stoic as ever, not looking away from the grinning girl. The man, on the other hand, was openly gaping at the sight of the young girl.

"Pleasant weather out here, isn't it?" she said with a grin.

The guards responded by squeezing their fingers on the trigger and calling upon a rain of bullets onto the girl. Time slowed down as she saw one, two, and three bullets heading her way. The muscles in her legs coiled and with a quick and strong pull from her right foot, the spike came loose and she spun her body to brace her back against the side of the car, the bullets passing by and hitting the walls of the tunnel.

"That's not how you treat a lady!" she screamed over the wind. "Did your mother never teach you manners?". The driver seeing her in the side mirror swerved the car towards the wall of the tunnel. Seeing the fast-approaching wall of concrete and death, she let out a sigh and said, "I just want to have a quick chat! I promise I won't hurt you," she said, legs already running up the walls of the tunnel as she flipped back onto the roof of the car.

Hearing the thud of flesh against metal once again, the guards inside did not waste a moment before starting to empty the cartridge into the velvet-lined ceiling of the car. Seeing as how the roof was about to have more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese, the sentinel pulled her knife out and ran along the roof, dodging the incoming barrage of bullets. She soon found herself running towards the front of the car and out of dodging space. Seeing a large electronic monitor hanging from the roof of the ceiling —the advert on it guaranteed that eating their food, cats would grow a coat of fur twice as thick— she held the dagger in her mouth by the hilt and jumped up as best as she could. Seeking out a narrow ledge near the bottom of the monitor, her fingers hung onto it as best as they could, while her feet swung around using her previous momentum. The sole of her feet stuck upon the back of the monitor and without a second thought, she let go of her fingers. A tiny sliver of magic made its way through her body and reached the sole of her feet where it moulded with the metallic monitor and held together with the two objects. She swung in an arc using her feet, stuck firmly to the back of the monitor, as the centre of her arc.

The bullets sailed harmlessly past her head. Keeping to her arc, she shifted her balance to her feet. Thigh muscles coiled like those of a cheetah, she pushed with all her might and let go of the back of the giant screen, cutting off the flow of magic to let her leap onto the moving car's roof again.

Not waiting for any pleasantries this time around, she dashed towards the side. The guards in their hurry to kill their unnamed assailant had forgotten all about the open window.

Her perception of time slowed again. The sentinel lowered herself, bending forwards at her waist and extended her arms in front of her. Forgetting all notions of conventional physics, she reached down and hooked her fingers and held onto the upper door frame. The muscles in her legs coiled once and without waiting to secure her hold on the door frame, she jumped, flipping through the air like a pendulum. Bringing her legs close to her chest, she turned clockwise, her arms holding onto the ledge even as the muscles tensed and stretched under the pressure of the manoeuvre, and before the guards could say 'Edward KingFisher', she finished the spin. Pulling her chest close to her arms, she barreled right into the limo through the open window. The dagger in her mouth found itself in her right hand and before either of the guards had the chance to raise their guns, two quick and efficient slashes ensured they found themselves missing a hand.

"Mr Diaz," the young Sentinel began, ignoring the screaming guards and the blood that had sprayed over her face and her clothes, "what a pleasant surprise seeing you here! Wouldn't you agree?"

All Diaz could do was look on as his finest were reduced to a mess from the loss of a limb. He looked at his bodyguards and then at the invader, then at the two hands lying on the floor of the car, fingers still hooked around the guns. Seeing the distracted man not paying any attention to her, she smashed the butt of the dagger into his face and broke his nose. The man groaned at the pain and made to cover his broken nose with both his hands, finally snapping out of the shock of seeing the brutal amputation and paying attention to the threat at hand.

"I tried reaching your secretary to set up a meeting with you, but for some reason, she never called back. I saw your car pass by while I was sightseeing over the East Tunnel and I thought, 'Heck, why not go and meet you.' It's a pity these well-bodied men had to suffer such," she said with a voice so sweet it could induce diabetes.

"W-What do you want, you monster?" Diaz asked, nursing his broken nose.

The young sentinel adopted a thinking pose and put a finger on her chin as she pretended to think. The expression was so exaggerated that it threw Diaz off the loop for a moment. Suddenly, she widened her eyes and snapped her fingers, smiling in the universal 'Eureka' pose. "I would like premier tickets to the new Spiderman movie if you don't mind. Come to think of it, I would like the premier tickets to every new Spiderman movie that is yet to be made," the teen replied.

Diaz was confused. 'What is the matter with her' he thought to himself.

"_Red-Nine, stop wasting my time and get the objective. White-Cross out."_

Sighing to herself at the rudeness of the incoming radio message, the sentinel gave up the innocent act. She reached towards Diaz, who flinched at her movement, and pulled out a handkerchief tucked in his suit pocket. She wiped her blood-splattered face with it before throwing it out of the still-moving car. Looking at the two worthless bodyguards still groaning in pain on the floor, she quickly snapped her fingers and a handful of magical golden dust fell over their heads and they promptly fell face-first on the floor of the car.

Cleaning the blood stuck on her dagger on the back of the fallen guard, she finally turned to look at Diaz, who was looking at her with a healthy amount of fear in his eyes, trying to back himself up into the corner of the seat and mould himself with it to escape her. The sentinel ignored the pathetic attempts of the man in front of her to escape and proceeded to sheath her dagger in the sheathe that was tied to her waist.

She reached for a small button on her belt and pressing it spoke to her aide, _"White-Cross, this is Red-Nine. Copy."_

"_Red-Nine, this is White-Cross. I copy."_

"_Send the dossier to my coordinates ASAP, White-Cross."_

"_Wilco, Red-Nine. Over and Out."_

The girl waited a few moments, spending those seconds glaring a hole in Diaz's eyes and then snapped her fingers again. Like the last time, golden dust fell out of the air and drifted down towards the bottom of the car. However, when it passed through her hands, there was a brown dossier waiting in her previously empty outstretched palms. She opened the plain brown-paper dossier and the first picture on the top greeted Diaz's eyes. It was a picture of him lying dead in his office. A gun in his hand and a splatter of blood on the wall behind him. He gave a gasp at the picture and then promptly fainted in his seat. But not before he peed his pants.

Looking at the disgusting man, Misty changed her seat to sit on the opposite side and wondered how she got here in the first place.

* * *

_Date: 27__th__ April 2005. New Moon Day. _

_Location: The Sanctuary __|| Lady Moon's Lair._

_Time: 2300 hours._

"Eight-Eight"

"Eight-Nine"

"Ninety"

"That will do for tonight," Selene spoke from where she was sitting on the dais. Upon hearing her word, a tired and sweaty Misty looked down towards the ground. Heaving in the air at the respite, she chose to relax for a moment. She closed her eyes to concentrate. One might think that hanging upside-down from the rafters would send enough blood to their brain for it to work sharper and faster. Of course, they did not have the exact predicaments that Misty had.

Hanging on a metal pole, 8 meters off the ground, with her legs, Misty had both her arms extended sideways. A dagger was precariously balanced on the centre of each palm while they had a golden glow encompassing them. Further our from the range of her arms were two buckets, both filled with water. At first glance, it might appear that Misty was using some form of telekinesis to hold the buckets of water up and preventing them from falling on the ground. But things are hardly what they seem. Taking a second glance at the buckets would reveal a weirder predicament. The buckets, filled with water, were not only floating in mid-air, obviously with Misty's golden magic, but were also upturned, or rather down-turned, so that the open end was facing the floor. So instead of the magic holding the bucket up, it was holding back the water inside the bucket and holding it in place to prevent the bucket from falling down.

Misty opened her eyes a moment later and with another golden flash around her hands, the buckets slowly turned around and then lowered themselves to the ground. Seeing the buckets safely on the ground, she closed her fingers around the daggers, smoothly flipping them to hold them hilt first. She sheathed them on the belt tied to her waist and in a smooth motion, moved her torso up so her arms could grab hold of the metal bar. Unhooking her legs from their place, she patiently waited, while Selene used her magic to smoothly lower the rod. When her distance from the floor was relatively reduced, she let go and landed in a crouch, gracefully getting up and standing in front of Lady Moon.

"Well done, Sentinel." Misty straightened her back at the praise but kept still in her place, eyes gazing unflinchingly at her teacher. "It seems that you can finally do the basics without screwing up seven ways to Tartarus. You have practised enough for the day," Selene spoke waving a hand and conjuring a towel in front of Misty which she gladly took, "but it is almost time for you to get back to bed. Finish your resting exercises and then sleep till dawn."

Misty started wiping the sweat from her brow with the proffered towel, which was slightly cold and worked wonders on her skin. "What of tomorrow, my lady?" she questioned.

Her two months, lunar months since Selene refused to have a calendar following the solar cycle, –for reasons that included a shovel, a big purple sock which might've been made to fit Bigfoot, and her own ego– at the Sanctuary had been nothing and everything like she had imagined at first. Her day had been cut up in four sections, which were always the same but never in the same order: Rest, Train, Meditate, Learn. When she had been told about her daily schedule the morning after she woke up from her gender-swap ritual, she had been flummoxed.

When Selene had given her those books all those days ago and told her to rest as her training was going to start, she had thought of the many movies which had wild and energetic training montages. She wanted to climb up a mountain with a bucket of water on her shoulders, punch a wall till her knuckles bled and then punch it again, try and catch a fly with chopsticks, run an obstacle course with her eyes closed. Stuff like that. Instead, she got something weird...

Rest, as the word implied, was at the very least not straining on her system. She was allowed to do this when she woke up when she was about to go to sleep, and three times between those two events whenever she wanted; though not for over 30 minutes. In that time, she had to eat food to keep her energy up, sleep or lie down to recover her stamina, read the books that had been assigned to her and think about what other tortures her day held. She, of course, being a voracious reader when she was Tushar, had taken to reading like a hippocampus to water. Her assigned reading material, which explained the basic concepts of every art taught at the Sanctuary, was done with within a fortnight. The pages that Selene had bookmarked were interesting as they gave her a general overview of everything and saved her the trouble of reading everything. But she had decided to fuck those instructions and had read all the tomes from cover to cover. What she had read had fascinated her. Apart from the physical disciplines, the Sanctuary, or Memory Selene since she was the only teacher in here, taught four skills. Alchemy, Rituals, Spirit Magic, and Enchanting.

Alchemy was the use of the various plants and animal components that had special characteristics and mixing them in the correct form to prepare potions, poultices, poisons, philtres and more. They were used by Sentinels on duty to boost their attributes or provide them with special abilities for the duration that the potion lasted for. In rare cases, there were examples of poisons being used on darts or the blades of daggers to affect enemies adversely. Upon talking with Selene about the topic, Misty had come to know that Alchemy was a discipline that took over five years to master to an acceptable level. And as a Sentinel, Selene would not let Misty hold the title of Alchemist till she proved that she could create everything described in the book without referring to it and then pass a test devised by the original Selene to test whether she was truly worthy of holding the mantle of Alchemist. The path of Alchemist was rewarding but it took close to 10 years –8 if Misty proved to hold a natural eye for Alchemy– before she would be able to finish her education in that field. And since the crisis at hand could not be held back for another 10 years, Selene had confessed that she would not train her in the art till Kronos was dealt with. Still, she had begun the preliminary reading about the qualities of various components.

Rituals were, as the name implied, the art of making and performing rituals. For whatever purpose they were intended for. There were rituals for body enhancement, ones that could alter her body, rituals that could grant her status-effects that would let her escape the sight of a god, even rituals that would grant her a longer life. The Ritual of X'etessi, which Selene said she used to change her gender, was also mentioned in brief in one of the books she read. Sadly, with the Ritual Room being out of order, Selene informed that none of the more power-extensive rituals could be conducted there. Not till it was repaired and supplied with more energy to fuel those rituals. The former would take a lot of time given that Selene was not a celestial architect and, according to her, 'The Hephaestus brutes charge too fucking much!'. Still, Misty believed that maybe she could win a few favours from the right people one day and at the end of the uprising, she could get the Ritual Room repaired. Becoming a ritual master was an even complex journey with stuff to learn that Misty could not even begin to understand even with the books at hand. So she let that path be without touching it seeing as she was more interested in Alchemy anyways.

Spirit Magic and Enchantments were disciplines that were much easier to learn but took a lot of effort to master. As the name had implied, Spirit magic was performing magic by utilizing the energy in her soul or spirit and doing stuff with it. Or at least that was what Selene had claimed. Misty was still a bit sceptical when she was asked to concentrate on the region near her stomach to see if she could feel any hidden energy in that area. Needless to say, Misty tried to concentrate on the spot, and after spending three days while looking as if she suffered from acute constipation, she finally managed to find something in her gut.

Every Sentinel was required to have a basic understanding of Spirit Magic to aide them in dire situations when their body failed them. Normally, that process took a year. But Selene had drafted a weaker version of the course for Misty so she would have adequate training in the most basic of the basic arts before she was thrown out into the world to stop the rebellion.

Enchanting was the art of granting special attributes or properties to otherwise mundane objects. While very similar to rituals, Enchanting was _usually_ done on inanimate objects instead of the body. And it took a lot less time to master. But with the limited time on hand, Selene had forbidden Misty from learning about Enchanting during her training time. She was permitted to study in her resting period but seeing as she already read about alchemy during that time, it was very hard for her to squeeze in time to study that art as well.

Finishing the tomes provided to her had given her a basic understanding of these arts. After she had been done with them, she had taken permission from Selene to access the library downstairs and take even more books to read from it. Some books were so old that when Misty tried to take them back to her quarters, Selene had stormed down the stairs to warn her to **not** do that and read them only in the reading area in the observatory. Doing otherwise would cause the stasis-enchantments on them to fail and cause them to decompose to dust. Some of the tomes were easier to take back to her room. She read avidly on alchemy, spirit-magic, and history. What had been fiction and mythology in her old world was a legend in her new one. So she had taken up some of the history books to refresh her knowledge as she did not wish to be under any misconceptions about any truth which might've been altered in the mundane world and she did not wish to rely on the hormone-riddled headache that called herself Mystery for information.

Training was not what she had hoped it would be. Instead of physical training or learning some form of martial arts, Selene helped her train in practising aspects of her Spirit Magic. Mainly her telekinesis and some minor alteration and illusion magic. She had insisted that Misty master those basics as much as she could before going out to fight as she might require them. And day after day, for over 8 hours, she was made to go through concentration exercises and made to ridiculous thing to get her body used to the feeling of performing spirit magic. Selene had insisted that with an increase in the usage of her spirit energy, or Mana as Misty had taken to calling it, her reserves would also increase. And as such, Selene had Misty grinding in that skill to get her accustomed to the skill as much as she could. By now, she had become more or less proficient in the simpler versions of the magic. She could perform the simpler tasks without straining her reserves and so, though she did not display it, Lady Moon was pleased.

Meditation was both, her least favourite and most favourite part of the day. She would spend it in the ruined Ritual Chamber sitting cross-legged in the centre, trying to connect with the link she had with Mystery. When Selene had originally asked her to do it, she had been hesitant. Mainly because she did not want to see the pervert in the flesh... but eventually the curiosity that ailed her from when she was 10 won and she had taken the position and begun her meditation.

Unlike Spirit-Magic, meditating to find her link with Mystery had not been hard at all. She had spent all of one hour emptying her head as much as she could when she felt a mental tug. Letting the force pull her, she was taken to a place in her mind where Mystery lived. She had opened her eyes again to find herself in a chamber which was similar to the Ritual Room. Except it wasn't destroyed. She had walked around the Pseudo-Sanctuary and eventually found Misty sleeping in her room. A few gentle nudges and she woke up from her nap and had screamed at her for close to twenty minutes before she realized that Misty had come to visit her. After that began the true reason behind her meditation. Apparently, when Lady Moon had put in Mystery's spirit in her body, she had done so for a reason: Availing the untrained Misty with the knowledge of a fully trained veteran Sentinel.

Of course, it hadn't been _that_ easy. All of Mystery's training and instincts and skills were now stored somewhere in Misty's brain. Except Selene was not sure if she would be able to recall it all when the time came. So she was supposed to visit her mind every day and along with Misty, train in getting familiar with all her new skills. Contrary to what she had initially believed, training in her mindscape did affect her state in the real world.

After she had come out of her trance three hours later, she could remember all that they had practised. All the acrobatic manoeuvres that they had practised in the forest outside the lair were in her head and she felt as if she had been performing them for ages. Thinking of trying out something new, she had gone up to the dining room and grabbed a butter knife, planning to see if her mental skills would play out without her practising them with Mystery first. And unsurprisingly, when she had tried to perform one of the trickier moves with the knife, she had failed halfway through. All the memories were right there in her head for her to call on but when the knife was spinning three feet in the air, something inside her had panicked and she had fallen from her handstand and the knife had cluttered uselessly to her side. Apparently, just because she had the skills and her instincts would occasionally kick in, did not mean that she could consciously perform all of them at will.

It was as if two players were playing a video game with two controllers. Except that both controlled the same character. Mystery's controller would press all the right keys at all the right times and be ready to execute the moves flawlessly, but her controller was a bit more hesitant in those actions. It was as if the player had all the instructions written down on a cheat-sheat in front of him but would fumble with the keys at the last second due to nervousness.

So every day, she would return to a quiet place to retreat to her mindscape and meet with Mystery, who would guide here through seemingly impossible stunts and manoeuvres. But for some reason, she could easily perform them in her mindscape and once she had done them there, it was a piece of cake for her to do them out in the material world. She still wasn't sure how quick her instincts would kick in when she needed them to perform a previously untried move, but Mystery had assured her that the instincts would take over the wheel when the need would arise and make sure that she came out with both her boobs intact; which did not fill her with much confidence since her head was a decidedly higher priority than her boobs.

Speaking of the female pervert, Misty had formed a strong bond with her during her mental escapades. Turned out that they looked hauntingly similar, with her new body taking most of its features from Mystery. There were few changes in between them if any.

While her hair was raven black, a few shades darker than when he had been a boy, Mystery had striking white hair, almost snow-like. They had the same sharp features and same azure eyes, an unnatural shade of blue that she preferred greatly to her previous dull brown. Mystery had turned out to much more cultured than she let on in their little mental sorties. She actually did not joke around _while _Misty was training or was nervous about jumping from some high place... But her mind would focus on all the wrong things once she was done. She had a way with words that would make a sailor blush. But after spending a few weeks with her, Misty understood her better. She would only joke to reduce the tension in the room or to take Misty's mind off of her latest brush with death. And though she was suggestive of all sorts of pleasures when Misty first got her body, Mystery never put her hand on a wrong place while they were working in close quarters. Even when she had a chance to do it without being noticed by Misty. The sexy little potty-mouth was quite caring and thoughtful when it came to those she cared for. And she did care for Misty. Not just because she shared a body with her but because just like Misty could access all skills and memories of Mystery, she could do the same. And reading into her entire life before Misty became a Sentinel had led to a level of intimacy that spending time together could not have achieved. Though Mystery's life was filled with much more hardships and Tushar's life was a rainbow in comparison, the un-dead Sentinel Spirit never brought it up. Always treating the new girl as her equal. Which had made them fast friends. Misty had grown to trust Mystery with her life and since that day, had grown to enjoy her perverted comments. Although she still acted annoyed so her mind-mate wouldn't be encouraged to be even more brash than usual.

And finally, every breathing hour where she wasn't resting in her room or the observatory, training her magic under Selene, meditating to familiarize herself with the skills of Mystery, or just sleeping, was spent with Selene while _Learning_.

With a new Sentinel needing the guidance and training from Selene, she had stopped her outings into the outside world, choosing to spend her time telling Misty about the things that she would have to know as a Guardian of The Divide(trademark pending). She was taught about humans who had seen the celestial world, about immortals of special interest that had to be kept a close eye on, about the dirty laundry of all the celestials in power in case they needed to brought down a rung, and what secrets were kept sealed tighter than Artemis' maidenhead. She spent those hours going over old reports and records made by previous Sentinels that taught her about what was expected of her. She was told about their contacts in both, the mortal realm and the celestial realm. The ones she could trust and the ones that they held by their balls with the threat of a sword hanging over their heads. And all this she had to memorize and keep in her head for when the need would arise.

She had been at this for two months. She had been hoping ever since the first month ended that Selene would send her out somewhere to do something in the field to save the world but nothing such as that had happened yet. She was not sure yet whether Selene shared her ideals for the dramatics and the theatrics so she chose not to mention her need to go and do something Book-Worthy. Yet, she still hoped that she would be sent out on an espionage or sabotage mission to kill some people or wipe some data servers. And perhaps sensing her eagerness to go and do something or maybe just seeing that Misty was ready to take on her enemies, Selene decided to send her out on her first assignment.

"Tomorrow you are going to travel back to New York," Selene said. "Towards your first assignment." Misty squealed in excitement but to anyone who asked her, she would always say that she remained badass even in that exciting moment. Interrupting Misty's premature squealing, Lady Moon continued. "Do not get so eager so soon, young Sentinel. Your assignment shall last well over a month. And tomorrow is only the first stage of it. Which, according to all estimates and past cases, is bound to be very boring. I need you in the Entrance Chamber at the crack of dawn. Once you are there, I will brief you on the specifics of your assignment and what you shall be doing in your first task." Metallic grey eyes turned over her form and gazed through her. A moment later, they softened, turning to liquid silver. "Go and rest for the night, Misty. Tomorrow is going to be a long day and I would rather not send one of my own into war unarmed," she sighed and continued, "but given the circumstances, I will have to send you out. If I could, then I would keep you in here for at least another year. Let you get perfectly assimilated with Mystery. However, fate is a cruel master. And I do not have any other options at the moment. Regardless, go and rest."

Misty power-walked to her room, taking Selene's advice to heart. The old celestial might not have started the Order, but she did have all the memories of the original and treated them all like her own family. _'Even though she's needlessly cruel and psychotic sometimes,'_ Mystery added.

_'Spending an eternity in isolation is not good for anyone's head. Maybe that's why she clutches so tightly to her Sentinels. We are her only constant form of contact.' _Misty answered wisely and took off her sweaty clothes, changing into a cotton robe for the night. She fell asleep staring at the ceiling above her bed, the moonstone embedded in it glowing softly.

Her last thoughts before her eyes closed were those of Selene, sitting on the moon. While someone looking like her but dressed in black, reclined against her back.

Misty woke up at 0500 hours. Having someone sharing a body with her was beneficial in more ways than one. Due to her previous life as a Sentinel, Mystery would sleep in the afternoons while she stayed awake at night. Her body had been conditioned to survive on 4 hours of sleep every day because of which she was always awake when Misty went to sleep. This led to the discovery of a rather efficient if redundantly pervy alarm clock. However, the swearing and moaning _was_ a rather surefire way to get Misty to wake up. Especially since before she turned into a Sentinel, she used to live in a typical Indian family that did not look lightly upon swearing. She no longer expected her mother to barge in asking why she was swearing, but the reaction never left her system, helping her wake up very easily. She went through her morning rituals, and after dressing up in her training robes, climbed up to the Entrance Chamber.

Despite being here for close to two months, Misty still found the moonstone-studded ceiling to be an exquisite marvel. The sun had not yet risen, and even though the sky was already turning blue from the refracted light rays, the moonstones were still glowing, giving off a dim light that gave the whole room a dull silver sheen. They would turn themselves off as soon as the sun made its way up but until then, Misty looked upon them with fondness. Few days started so peacefully and she intended to enjoy the sight before walking up to Selene at sunrise for her mission briefing. She wouldn't mind her anyways; Selene liked seeing the moonstones herself. After all, who knew when she would next get to see these shining crystals next. Her mission could bring anything to the table. Including moving out of The Sanctuary.

* * *

"Mr Diaz, what I hold in my hand is a particularly nice gift from Lord Apollo. I trust you know him?" Misty asked the quivering man. He half nodded, before shaking his head frantically.

"No, I don't. I don't have any idea who this Lord Apollo is," he said.

Misty tsk-ed almost regretfully. She would have preferred not to dirty her hands with this one. "Victor Maria Diaz. Son of Terrence Smith and Maria Diaz. Your father left your mother at the age of 17. Unknown to both, she was pregnant with you at the time. You grew up with your grandparents, who owned a small pharmacy but actually ran a weed business in the dark. You took over the family business, both of them, at 19 when your grandfather was killed in his bed by a rival runner. You expanded the business to other drugs against the advice of your grandmother. She was found dead in her bed a day later when her protests became too verbal. Your expansion policies ended when you found Whiplash Pharmaceuticals, rumoured to be named after the stripper you lost your virginity to. Your mother lives a life of comfort and relief in Miami, believing that her son earns her comfort by selling premium medicine at a discounted price for the Mexican community of immigrants where you used to live. She is unaware of the fact that when she boards the No. 8 bus every Sunday to go to church, two of your men follow her to take care of her. She also does not know about the fact that you killed your step-father, and her first husband, by drowning him in his bathtub. Your wife, Patricia, still thinks that you are devoted to her. She does not know about Amelia or Daisy, both teenagers that you keep around in one of your other properties and visit every week."

"The bowel medication that you take with scotch instead of water as your doctor prescribed is still waiting at home for you. However, you may never get to take it again if you do not answer our questions. And trust me when I say it that loose bowels will be the least of your worries. The first will be the papers that you keep dealing with your side business. It is currently on the way to the police station. Being delivered by your daughter. And your account manager is driving the van. And rest assured that Amelia and Daisy will reach your home in the next hour as well to meet you for a 'surprise visit' unless you give me a reason to call them back."

"What do you want to know," Diaz questioned.

"The medicines your company makes," Misty began, "have recently started having a weird side-effect on the users. Nightmares. Repetitive nightmares that revolve around their childhood trauma. What do you know about them?"

Diaz looked around the car, suddenly uncomfortable, _more _uncomfortable than before, and paranoid. He wiped the sweat on his forehead with his hand and slowly spoke, "You are meddling in things that have nothing to do with you. The powers that you are dealing with will destroy both of us."

"So you _are_ aware of what I am talking about!" Misty said. "That solves our first problem at the least." She removed a small plastic zip-bag with red flowers in it. "This plant. Your workers have been adding its extract to the meds. Where are you getting it," she asked him holding the bag for him to see.

Diaz's eyes widened at the bag of evidence in front of him. He removed a white handkerchief from his pants and wiped the sweat from his face again, with slow, shaking movements. "Where did you get that thing? Do you have any idea what you have stumbled upon? You very well may have just signed our death sentences." Terror lined his voice. He feared whatever she was asking about. The only question was whether he feared it enough to want to escape it by any means possible.

"Answer the questions," Misty spoke softly, a thin undertone in her voice and the sharp edge of the dagger in her hands conveying the 'or else...'.

Diaz sweated some more, debating with himself whether to risk his life at the hands of the devil who was in front of him or at the hands of the devil that awaiting him when he went to sleep. Finally reaching a conclusion, he started explaining.

"I mostly used the medicine business to cover for some of the chemicals that I needed for my drug labs. I did not pay much attention to that part of the business, leaving it in the hands of my cousin and letting him do all the philanthropy that he wanted so my mother would be pleased." He spoke slowly, a slight accent colouring his voice as he progressed. "The business was going well when one day _he_ came to meet me at home. _El Diablo._" His shirt had started to stick to his skin from the precipitation by now and he showed no signs of relaxing. "He .. threatened me. He was going to kill my wife and kids if I did not do what he said. I thought he wanted what they all wanted. Money, drugs, women, gold."

He laughed bitterly. "_He_ wanted none of that. He gave me a basket of flowers. The ones you have with you. Told me to add them to my paracetamol formula and my drugs. He left after that." His breathing had started getting heavier at this point, and Misty seeing the event started casting a subtle illusion spell, one that would make him feel safe. "I had my men run some tests on them. It turned up nothing. The damned things were by all accounts normal flowers but as soon as I injected it into any of them, they turned into quivering and stuttering messes. It was scary," he said slowly, not slowing down his breathing despite the spell, "terrifying. I did not want to add them. It would ruin business if everyone reacted the same after eating them. But then _he _came again. And he brought another with him. His brother."

"They killed my men by crushing their throats, butchered them and made me watch it all. Told me that it would be my wife tomorrow if I did not add it today. I did it... no matter how reluctantly."

"What happened to the new batches?" Misty questioned.

"They... they sold even better." Diaz clutched his handkerchief and wiped his face again, now looking like his body pained from this. "It was addicting. V-very addicting... my men, had to kill two of the dogs because they couldn't stop. Then.. then the nightmares began. Only the ones who used it had them. And they could not stop using it. Many.. many poor souls tried... many died..."

"Who were the beings that gave you the flower," Misty questioned, "Do you have a name?"

"Y-Yes.." Diaz sputtered out. He was holding the left side of his chest now and was looking like breathing physically pained him. None of the spells Misty had cast on him had helped. There was only one thing that could do this and Misty did not know enough to remove a _curse_. Diaz was a man of few moments and Misty intended to get all the information she needed out of him before he passed.

"What were their names? Give me the names," Misty said, holding his shoulders and shaking him wildly to bring him back to consciousness.

Diaz looked at her with hollow eyes. His sweat-soaked clothes made him look nothing like the rich drug lord that he was. His hands that clutched at his heart loosened and dropped to his side. Taking in one last shuddering breath he spoke for the last time.

"Phobos. Demos."

The partition between the driver and the passenger lowered with a mechanic hum. On the other side, Selene sat holding a knife to the driver's throat. "Looks like you got more work to do, Misty."

Misty sighed. It was going to be one of _those _stories.

* * *

**LEMON SCENE**

* * *

Misty closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was in the bedroom of Mystery. The aforementioned person was sleeping soundly. Seeing the opportunity, Misty decided to try out one of her pranks. She tip-toed out of the room and walked to where the mind-equivalent of the kitchen would be. Grabbing a pitcher of cold water, she sneaked back to the bedroom, making no noise upon her arrival.

The thing that fascinated her about the mindscape was that though it was Mystery's home and domain, she was in no way aware of everything that happened in it. Unless and until Misty did something really ground shaking, Mystery would sense no disturbance in the mindscape and would not realize that Misty was around until later on when she saw her standing next to her.

Owing to that little fact, she walked straight over to the bed and gently turned the pitcher over her spiritual companion's head. Unsurprisingly, as soon as the first droplet of water touched her head, Mystery reacted.

Unfortunately, she reacted by jerking awake and launching a fist at the pitcher, causing it to fly up in the air and drenching them both in cold water. Mystery was not pleased with being awakened by a prank. But she did laugh after she saw Misty standing over her with her clothes drenched with the very same water that she tried to prank her with. Shaking her head in amusement, she got up from the bed and smacked the young Sentinel up the head. "You idiot! You could've at least levitated the pitcher if you wanted to prank me properly," Mystery mock-fumed. "I swear I am surrounded by idiots all the time!"

Misty had no response to that other than bursting out in laughter at the scene. However, while the two were laughing at each other, they realized that they were still drenched to the bone. Acting first, Mystery pulled Misty towards the shower to get rid of the cold.

Stepping into the shower, she started undressing and throwing her wet clothes outside. For reasons unknown to Misty, despite being pretty-much in charge of the mindscape, Mystery still kept laundry baskets around and let her clothes get washed similarly to what Misty experienced in the Sanctuary. Maybe it was that she was too used with the Sanctuary's nuances to change these little facts after she had formed the mindscape. Thinking of the little juvenile prankster, Mystery realized that she was not in the shower.

Looking back at the entrance, she saw that Misty was standing there at the threshold staring at Mystery's naked body with a blush on her face. Seeing another opportunity to embarrass the little hormone-riddled Sentinel, Mystery pushed her arms together, accentuating her breasts and making them look larger than they were. "Like what you see," she said in a sing-song voice.

Misty blushed harder at that and looked away at the floor, hoping that doing so would hide her rapidly reddening neck(it did not). Powering through her embarrassment, she stepped into the shower and started undressing; looking anywhere but at the sensual husk of beauty that stood in front of her. She reminded herself that there wasn't anything that Mystery hadn't seen before but still could not stop the blush from deepening when she threw her underclothes in the laundry basket.

She turned her back on Mystery to deposit the clothes in the laundry basket when she came up from behind her and softly hugged her. Mystery took special care to not touch her at any of her erogenous zones, she did not want her friend to feel overly uncomfortable. Only really awkward. She snaked her arms around her belly and put her chin her shoulders, bending a little so she could place it there.

"Were you checking to see if the carpet matched the drapes," Mystery asked with a husky voice, her lips close to Misty's ears. "Did you like what you see?"

Unknown to the tempting seductress, Misty _was _checking to see if the carpet matched the drapes. Mystery had hair that was silver, almost white and she was curious whether her pubic hair was also the same; which much to her hidden arousal was. And she had definitely liked what she saw no matter how much she would deny it. Being a straight boy and then later spending most of her time with a beautiful girl who had no reservations about teasing her with pervy comments had done no favours to her sexuality and she was pretty sure that despite Mystery's intervention, she still swung the same way. Namely, she swung her way.

Too bothered by the heat that had started creeping between her legs, she murmured an affirmative, before realizing what she had done and freezing.

Mystery, being ever so fun to be around, saw no reason to let this go unanswered. Pressing her noticeably larger breasts into her back, she replied in an even huskier tone, her soft lips pressing glancing touches at Misty's earlobes.

"You do?" she asked coyly, "And here I was thinking that you didn't like me. I didn't even show you how to take care of your _desires_ because of that..." She stopped speaking and with her strong arms pulled Misty closer to her own body, "misunderstanding."

Misty froze. She _had _thought of masturbating to relieve some stress... but the hectic schedule had made it hard for her to get used to the new body. She did not have enough time to experiment and she was too mindful of Mystery to do it at any time except for when the spirit slept. But _knowing_ that she had meant it when Mystery had offered to help her with the... _stress-relieving_ she thought with another mild blush made it another thing.

Deciding that she had nothing to lose except some self-respect if all this turned out to be another one of Mystery's jokes (albeit she would not do something so cruel as to make a girl wet and then leave her without getting her to climax) she drew upon her vast fanfiction knowledge and finding the suitable comeback spoke.

"_Maybe you should do it now."_

Mystery slightly loosened her hold on Mystery and making sure to speak in a clear voice said, "You sure about this, Tee? No pressure if you don't want to do anything."

Misty nodded. She was ready for it. Mystery had been good at seduction back in her day and if she was going to have to do this anytime in her life, she had better have her first time with someone like her. Someone she could trust.

"Say _Medusa_ if you want me to stop."

With the safe word out of the way, Mystery turned her around in her arms and pushed her back against the wall. A small gesture of spirit magic and the shower turned on, spraying them with hot water.

Looking at the small droplets of water gliding down Misty's cheeks, she closed in and touched her lips to hers. Misty froze for all but a moment and then began replying in earnest. They kissed each other hungrily, one with the grace of a limping gorilla and the other trying her best to teach her the correct technique.

Mystery dragged her hands across Misty's skin, trailing a path of contact starting from her shoulders. A small moment of concentration and her hands were much colder than normal. She trailed them down from her shoulder blades before coming to rest on her breasts. The spheres of ecstasy shivered under the unexpected cold contact of her hands. Cold fingers gently grazed against rapidly hardening nipples and before anyone could utter another word, Misty gasped in Mystery's mouth, stopping the kiss to deal with the sensation of her nipples being tweaked.

Seeing the elevation of actions for what it was, Mystery left the plump pink pillows for Misty's teeth to bite and nibble on —and if she knew what she was doing, which she did, there would be a lot of biting involved. Trailing a path of warm and soft kisses, Mystery went down her neck, nimble fingers still playing with Misty's breasts like a particularly smooth guitar. She went in to kiss the side of her neck again and drug her tongue against Misty's skin, delighting in the small shiver that went through the target of her ministrations when she did so.

Stopping her magical fingers from their work for a minute, she looked Misty in the eye. A moment later those eyes widened when she tweaked both nippled in opposite directions and began sucking on her neck. One of the benefits of learning spirit magic was the alteration component of it. Normally, teasing someone's nipples would result in a soft gasp and tiny purrs. But the short vibrating sensation that she attached to her fingers before she clamped them down on Misty's now hard nipples had her moaning loud, biting her lower lip to try and control her voice forgetting the fact that there was nobody else in the place apart from there. And if Mystery had her way, Misty would be remembering that fact before she was done and screeching as loud as she could.

Moving her mouth from her neck, she gently made her way lower down, leaving a path of kisses in her wake. Her hands left their places on the mounds of soft flesh on her chest and made their way down to the mounds of soft flesh on her hips. Grabbing hold of her ass and mauling it in her palms, she took to biting the tender bits of her boobs softly, eliciting gentle gasps and on the occasions that her teeth would graze against the skin of her nipples, loud mewls.

Mystery was almost leaning down on her knees at this point and Misty's legs were shaking from the pleasure that she was being bombarded with by her partner. She had never before been in such ecstasy and her brains were rapidly turning into a gooey mush that refused to listen to her commands. With another bite at her nipples, this one coupled with a really low voltage applied to her teeth to multiply the effect of the action, Mystery moved her hands from her ass to her wet pussy. Despite the hot shower water flowing down their body in tantalizing rivulets, Misty's core was still sticky with the juices softly flowing down her legs. Mystery knew very well how the shaking legs would respond were she to make her presence known to the insides of her wet slit and so she shut the water supply off before in a sweeping motion, she literally swept Misty off her feet and catching her in her arms gently lowered on the floor.

Moving her legs to either side of her prone form, Mystery trapped her companion, looking into her lust-clouded gaze with a mirrored gaze. Leaning back down to kiss her succulent lips, she moved her hands to the slit between her legs. As soon as she touched the surface of her vagina, Misty's legs clamped around her fingers on instinct, not allowing her to remove them from their place but also preventing her from moving her fingers any deeper. Biting and pulling at Misty's lower lip, she made her loosen her legs and with a grace that only years of experience with her own body could have given her, she started rubbing circles around her lower lips in a clockwise direction, all the while her other hand played with her heaving breasts.

Deciding to move things along faster, she moved her thumb directly over her nub. She distracted Misty by drawing her even deeper into the kiss by sucking at her lips even harder and using her frozen fingers trick on her nipples. So distracted was the young Sentinel by these actions that she did not notice the thumb that had drawn closer to her clitoris.

If the sharp intake of breath was anything to go by, Mystery was doing the correct things to her young friend. Misty broke from the kiss to let out a lewd moan. Her previously idle hands suddenly closed around her ass and in her lust-induced haze she spoke to her companion, "Stop teasing me, you minx! Go in deeper!"

Hardly one to deny any such enthusiastic orders given to her, she finally moved her index fingers inside Misty. Warmth enveloped her finger on all sides, the tender flesh inside of Misty sticking close to the object of her pleasure. Misty bucked her hips up at the intrusion and Mystery pressed the little button once again, drawing out an even louder moan from Misty. Mystery smirked, inwardly pleased at the quite blatant proof that she knew what she was doing. She sped up her actions, slowly probing out the walls of her pussy before slowing adding another finger into the mix. The results were instantaneous as Misty grabbed her butt even harder and let out a moan with her name, "Fucking hell, Mystery! Don't stop whatever you are doing! Don't you dare stop!"

Letting out a tinkling giggle, Mystery moved her mouth back to her right boob while her left was handled by her free hand. Her eager ministrations continued on for a short while before she paused.

Misty, now sweaty and getting ready for the approaching climax looked at Mystery puzzled, clearly not pleased at the cessation in the pleasantries.

"I just realized something..." Mystery began, gently fondling Misty's boobs to stop her earlier protests, "Selene made your new body with me in mind. Most of your physical features were developed so whatever I did could also be done by you."

Her eyes got an almost evil gleam as she stopped playing with Misty's breasts. "Does that also mean that you have the same sensitive spots as me?"

Before Misty could answer the question or do more than act puzzled at the seemingly innocuous question, Mystery _hooked _the two fingers that were currently inside Misty and twisting them around touched a particular spot that felt _just so good_. Before she could decide how to respond to that, something that vibrated touched down upon her clit and a pair of cold teeth accompanied by a warm tongue touched her nipple. With another few flicks of the hooked fingers that were still inside her most sanctimonious passage, an overwhelming stream of pleasure hit Misty. Her eyes closed and she opened her mouth to let out a long moan.

The moan lasted for a full ten seconds, throughout which Mystery never stopped with her movements. Only after the first orgasm of her new life had completely subsided did she open her eyes to look back into blue eyes that were similar to her own.

Mystery's smirking face and mischievous eyes looked at Misty's half-lidded eyes and smiling lips.

Opening her mouth Misty asked her in a hoarse and tired voice, "Now that it is over, I have a question," she began and after moving her body to lean on her elbow to move her face closer to Mystery's said, "Will it be considered incest because I am basically fucking myself?"

Mystery did nothing except let out a gentle laugh. She looked back at Misty and said, "Who says we are done?" and then moved her mouth lower to her Misty's still gushing pussy.

* * *

**Don't forget to review! Reviews help me get motivated and motivation awakens my muse and my muse brings out the leather whip and the leather whip makes me write! **

**Any questions or suggestions that you have can be sent via a review or a PM. I will try my best to accommodate everyone but not at the cost of the plot.**

**STAY SAFE!~**


	6. Fire that Does not Burn

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**** See that! I'm on time! A week early even! One might argue that I never gave you guys a schedule for when I would publish stuff and hence I can't "technically" be early but here's what I have to say to them: *blows raspberry***

**My muse had been most generous this week which is why I had been able to finish this chapter so soon. It was originally going to be up on Friday(Day before yesterday for people from other time zones) but I ran into some minor issues but fear not! It is here now!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its various prequels/sequels. The rights solely belong to... *looks over shoulder* *hushed whispering* Sorry about that! I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It belongs to Uncle Rick and whomsoever he considers worthy of the ownership. *looks over shoulder and nods* I also don't own Harry Potter if that was ever in question.**

* * *

**The Fire that Does Not Burn**

* * *

"Normal Talking"

_'Mental Conversations/Thinking'_

**'Magic Speak'**

* * *

_Date: 19__th__ May 2005_

_Location: The Sanctuary_

_Time: 1030 hours_

"What do you know about the celestial weapons used by the Elder Olympians," Selene asked Misty. Both were resting in the Entrance Chambers, one with a book in hand and the other taking notes just in case.

"Uhh... Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were the first generation of the Olympians that had been given weapons crafted by the legendary Hundred Handed Ones and the Elder Cyclopses. The Hekatonkheires made the weapons while they were trapped in Tartarus, under the orders of the Titan-Lord Kronos. Zeus has got a Lightning Bolt which, mythologically, can smite anything that it is aimed at but according to your books blasts a strong concentration of lightning, heat, and raw spirit energy that causes the target to fade from existence instead of 'dying' and going to the Underworld or Tartarus." Misty was prepared to continue on to the Trident and the Helm but Selene held up a hand asking her to stop.

"What would you do if your enemy had managed to capture the Lightning Bolt?" Selene asked what Misty assumed was a rhetorical question.

'_I don't suppose lay down and die is an adequate answer?' _she questioned Mystery in her head.

'_Not unless you want toilet duty.'_ her friend answered honestly.

"Try to hide from their sights so they cannot aim at me?" she said tentatively.

"I would award you a silver star for your idea if I could find the remains of your body after it had been blown apart by the Bolt."

Misty sweatdropped and asked Selene what she would do; after she scratched off 'HIDE' from her notes.

"The Lightning Bolt utilizes a large amount of spirit energy. When I taught you spirit magic, I told you that spirit energy that has no purpose does not stay stable. It explodes soon after exiting the user's body and is forever lost to the user. A waste of energy unless you are trying to commit a kamikaze move. The lightning bolt works by pulling the wielder's spirit energy. However, instead of shaping it into a particular function, it stores it in its raw form until it is discharged along with the lightning and the heat. Which means that the target will be sufficiently tired after the first blast and unless you are battling someone above or on Olympian level, you will be able to take them down before they can prepare a second blast."

"Which means that you need to appear to be, at all times, the second-most threatening person in the room even if you are the largest threat in reality."

"Okay... but why are you telling me all this?" Misty said.

"Because Zeus' Primary Lightning Bolt has been stolen."

…

…

…

'_Tee? You alright? Want me to give you a little pick-me-up?' _Mystery asked.

"Where was it stolen from?" she nonchalantly asked Selene, almost being afraid of the answer.

"From Olympus during the Winter Solstice," Selene answered knowing where her Sentinel was going.

"So let me get this straight..." Misty began putting aside the notebook and the pen, "One of the strongest weapon, and perhaps **the** strongest weapon if I consider only raw offensive potential, that can annihilate any god, demigod, immortal, mortal, and perhaps even a weakened Titan with a single hit, with a nigh-inevitable targeting system, was stolen from the very palace of the Olympians. A place where at least 40 major or minor gods and immortals could be found awake regardless of the time. A place which houses the currently ruling celestial race. A place which would have been the prime target for any enemy and should be almost impossible to infiltrate, _much less escape from_. And _then_," a small vein bulged on her head when she said this, "someone managed to steal The _Lightning Bolt_ of the current _King of the Olympians_ on the _liveliest_ day of winter?"

Selene winced at the frank admission of their stupidity but she had little pity left for the Olympians after they had voted her out of Olympus. "Well when you put it like that, you are simply highlighting their incompetence. Regardless, the bolt has been stolen. And here's where it gets tricky."

"Zeus is accusing Poseidon of the act. It is widely known that other gods cannot lay their hands upon any celestial weapons that belong to somebody else. However, demigods are exempt from this law. And it has recently come to light that Poseidon might or might not have a demigod child that he has hidden from the rest of the Olympians."

"Does Poseidon having a child with a mortal not violate the Treaty of Olympia signed after the second world war?" Misty asked.

"It does but since Zeus broke it twice, and with the same woman, he is hardly in a position to bring it up."

"What about Hades?"

"He still has the moral high ground but he has holed himself up in his palace in the Underworld."

"Is he hiding something?" Misty asked suspiciously.

"Hardly," Selene scoffed. "After his throne was taken away, he often withdrew into social isolation in the Underworld when Persephone had to leave. If not for his wife returning to him, the geek would probably spend all his time without seeing another face. It isn't a secret that the Furies are more of an interaction buffer than peacekeepers for the Underworld."

"Okay... If Hades is simply being a social loner and Poseidon has only circumstantial evidence against him, whom does that leave?"

"We don't know yet. But you are going to find out," Selene said.

"Who's our informant this time," asked Misty.

"It is not an informant this time so much as our ally," Selene spoke. She got up from her chair and moved to the fireplace. Misty got up to follow her and stopped beside her. "It is time that you met up with Hestia, the only Elder Olympians who still supports us."

* * *

_Date: 19__th__ May 2005 of the Gregorian Calendar. _

_Location: Ares' Palace, Mount Olympus._

_Time: 1900 hours || local time_

Ares, God of War and Blood lust, Son of Zeus and Hera, Member of the Olympian Council, Lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love was not happy. Of course, if one were to ask him if he had any reason to be unhappy, he would laugh at their faces after he smashed their nose, urinate on their knocked-out body, and depending upon the day of the week and the mood that Aphrodite or one of his myriad of other mistresses were in last night, have his way with their wife. Ares was one such god that had few,, if any, restrictions set upon his actions and as such was free to seek his happiness where his soul, and in many cases his cock, directed him.

Being a god who reigned over the domains of war-slaughter and battle-lust, he had no shortage of power. The mortal world was rife with conflict and more often than not there was someone on the land below Mount Olympus who was either partaking in war and feeding Ares from the resulting slaughter or someone who had been overwhelmed by their blood lust and assaulted someone in their haze-filled stupor. This led him to be what many considered one of the stronger Olympians.

After all, the gods were only strong for as long as they were remembered and praised. Else they would end up fading, much like Helios had.

Having that sort of power with him had left him with a much looser lease around his neck; as compared to Hermes or Dionysus. His father was aware of the fact that trying to curb some of his more violent tendencies would inevitably lead to conflict. A battle which would lead to him getting stronger. There was nothing worse than an enemy who gained his strength from an act of violence. It made him theoretically infallible.

But despite his usual carefree attitude, he was troubled. It had been a scant-few month since he had been leading his sons Phobos and Deimos to hunt for the suicidal demigod who dared to steal Zeus' Master-Bolt. It had been a point of pride for him when he caught the rag-tag crew of the four demigods who had Hermes' stench over them before the others.

Athena, who prided herself over her much prized "strategy" and Artemis with her gaggle of stuck-up prudes had both looked down upon his more brutish practices over the millennia. It had been particularly delightful when he put the two dried-up hags in their places. Aphrodite had walked bow-legged for a week after his victory.

Shaking his head to get back to his original thoughts and away from the luscious legs of his lascivious lover, he thought about the proposal that Luke Castellan had offered him. A chance at war. A war between the Olympians and the Titans.

He had scoffed at the audacity of the boy. The Titans had often led an uprising over the centuries and each was put down before they could gain even a smidgen of ground. There was simply too much pathetic blood amongst the Titan-Lords to defeat the might of him and the other Olympians. Ares did not concern himself with the fact that the ichor that flowed through his veins was the same that flowed through the veins of many of the Titans he had defeated over the years. His brain had not yet evolved to reach such simple conclusions without outside influence. But he had no need for something as useless as a brain for he had the strength in his arms and courage in his heart. And as long as he had those two, he would win any battle he took part in no matter how skewed the odds may be.

He shook his head again to clear the invasive thoughts and got back to that night. The Castellan kid had revealed that they had plans to free Kronos from his prison in Tartarus. Ares was confident in the strength of his sword-arm and the integrity of his shield. But he too knew how strong the Titan-Lord of Time was. If he were to join the battle, many of the stronger Titans who had previously stayed out of the war would raise their arms, leaving behind centuries of subservience.

His first thoughts had been to butcher half of the motley crew before taking their leader back to Olympus on charges of treason. His father would reward him greatly for such an act and it would bring down Hermes a notch. The slippery wimp had played one too many pranks at his expense on the urging of Hephaestus. And the hunchback was too well fortified in his fortresses below the ground for him to attack him. But perhaps he should attack them. Both of them considered themselves above him. They belonged at his feet, polishing his sandals before he went off to war.

He paused in his pacing. What was he thinking about? Ares moved to a basin of water near him and splashed his face with cold water. His head was wandering off too much this day. He needed to concentrate.

He went back to that night. Luke Castellan. Yes. The boy he was going to capture and present to his father. However, he had not done so. For the boy had presented to him an opportunity that he could not have denied.

The Master-Bolt of Zeus and Hades' Helm of Darkness. Two divine weapons. Both stolen. Poseidon still has his trident. He just had to wait for a few months and soon the three brothers would be at each other's throats trying to kill each other. And he would gain the strength from the blood that would be shed from that war. A war amongst the mortals was enough to slake his thirst. But a war amongst the gods? Olympian pitted against Olympian as the ground ran gold with ichor? The thought of such ecstasy almost sent him into orgasmic bliss.

He had already set his sons to gather their strengths. They were his right and left hands and also a source of some of his strength. When they grew stronger, so would he.

So he had set them off in the mortal to spread their fear and terror. He could already feel a steady stream of power filling his immortal body at the moment, making him stronger by the moment. There was always the chance that one of the other Olympians, perhaps Athena or Apollo, would notice his rising power but it would be too late by then. He would be too strong and they would be too late and the war would have begun. He would be nigh-invincible at that stage and even the Elder Olympians would have a hard time challenging him in that form.

He knew that all three Elders could defeat him if they united. There was a reason that the Titan-Lord Kronos was not able to measure up to the might of the three brothers together. But the civil war would guarantee that there would be nobody standing in his path when he finally made his bid for power. He could taste it already. The power, the strength. The same fools that ridiculed him today would be lying at his feet the next day. Hermes, Apollo, Athena, Artemis, Hephaestus, Demeter. All those cunts would be having their turn soon. He would humiliate them as they did to him. And he would live in comfort with Aphrodite on his arm and the choicest maidens from all over Olympus falling over themselves to kiss his manhood. But...

Why was he feeling this hesitation? He thought about it again. Apollo and Artemis were his siblings. And though he had no warm memories of the latter, he had often fought side-by-side with the former. He had stolen a lot of maidenheads along with Hermes. The small pranks that he played upon him were just as much a piece of him as his network of messengers was. Should he hold his kinsman in fault for his domain? Should he condemn himself for getting a hard-on during battles as well?

And what of Hephaestus? The copper-skinned brute had often ambushed him and Aphrodite whilst they were in some very compromising positions. But he only used those opportunities to nail her all the harder. He hardly found them embarrassing since those orgasmic cries had often sent nymphs flushing at his sight as they recalled the images of him railing it up the hottest goddess on the continent. He certainly felt bitter for the many interruptions that had ruined the mood but maybe such actions warranted a more personal and upfront attack rather than a civil war amongst the gods. After all, everyone knew that Hephaestus only felt safe within his fortress because Ares was not really trying to beat him up. His mother would be very cross with him if he beat up his deformed half brother.

Maybe... maybe it would be for the best if he sent the bolt and the helm back to their owners and turn Castellan in. The sight of Hermes when he watched his eldest be found guilty of such a crime would certainly be worth it. Maybe he should do it.

He got up and moved to step outside of his palace. He would flash down to Camp Half-Blood and collect the little thief and deliver him to his father and uncle.

But before he could open the gates to his palace to step out, a black mist descended upon his head. His eyes glazed over and turned red. Images of himself being humiliated flashed through his head in quick succession. Anger flowed through him. Raw red rage. A madness that called to be quelled upon the bodies of his conquered enemies. The black mist left him after a moment.

He blinked to clear his eyes up. He could see it now. Artemis and Athena on his arms as he tamed them and claimed their maiden-heads. Aphrodite pleasuring him while Hephaestus watched, reduced to the task of polishing his weapons and armour before he left for war. And Hermes... he would make the little arse serve him food. A fitting job for someone who would deliver messages; he would him deliver his meals. And Apollo would forever be chained up to his chariot as Ares delighted in the fact that he would no longer be allowed to have any kind of fun.

Yes... Ares could see it all now. The power that awaited him if he played his cards right. The orgasmic bliss that he experienced earlier returned and much stronger. He felt a familiar tightness in his pants and started moving towards Aphrodite's palace. He would ravish her all night long. Her body would go a long way towards calming down his blood lust until the war actually began. It was her duty as his woman and since he was going to give her such a grand position when he ascended to the throne, he deserved to ravage her smooth insides all he wanted.

* * *

_Date: 20__th__ May 2005. _

_Location: The Sanctuary_

_Time: 2000 hours_

Misty hesitantly walked into the fireplace at the Sanctuary. Selene _had _told her that she wouldn't be hurt but there was still a tiny amount of paranoia left in her that did not want her to step into the hot and flashing fire. However, when she walked into the burning piles of logs and got covered by the amber flames, she did not burn. Instead, she felt the same sensation that she did when the Sentience teleported her.

'_Thank the Elders I passed through. It seemed too much like a Harry Potter rip-off to be true for a moment.'_

A moment of passing through a water-filled pool later, she was standing inside a wooden cottage. There was a kitchen in front of her where a woman –she appeared around 40-ish to her eyes but Mystery had advised her to not believe her eyes when it came to the divine world– appeared to be cooking a meal.

Upon her arrival, the woman looked up and smiled warmly at the teen Sentinel. Misty returned the smile and walked towards the kitchen. In front of her, a stew was being prepared in a metal pot, and every few seconds Hestia would add in some spices to the dish. Misty did not know much about cooking, and neither did Mystery despite her pre-initiation style of living. But whatever Lady Hestia appeared to be doing to the dish was definitely working.

"Greetings, Lady Hestia."

"Greetings, Sentinel. And call me Aunt Hestia. I do not stand by such formalities. You're practically family." Hestia said. "Now, wash your hands and face and take a seat at the table. Dinner's almost ready."

Misty resisted the urge to give out a flustered smile. "Then, please, call me Misty." Selene had told her beforehand of Hestia's tendency to induct everyone in the room into her family. However, nothing could have prepared her for how warm and motherly the woman really was. She moved to wash her hands in a small basin of water kept nearby. She looked over her shoulder and saw Hestia placing a lid over the steaming pot of stew. Washing her hands, she moved to the pot and casting a quick ice spell on her hands, held the hot pot of stew and carried it to the table despite Hestia's refusal. "If you consider me family, Aunt Hestia, then let me help you. I can hardly let you do all the work, can I?" she said with a wry smile after placing the pot at the table. Her mother had drilled manners into her at an early age and although most had bled out with the arrival of teenage-hood and hormones, some had stayed.

Hestia gave the girl another warm smile and then both sat down to eat their dinner. Misty had wanted to broach the subject of the theft of the lightning bolt while they were eating, but Mystery had sent her a mental warning to not discuss such matters during dinner. And so the meal had continued with any interruptions. They had made small talk about how Misty was fitting in among the Order, how Selene was doing, _whether she missed being a boy_ (apparently Artemis' mouth loosened when she sat with her Aunt Hestia for their monthly get-together.) Misty answered the questions as best as she could, eating the food with great gusto. After the meal was finished, Misty helped Hestia carry the dishes and pans to a sink where they started to wash.

Later, they sat comfortably in plushy armchairs and Hestia brought up the reason Misty was there. Misty sat up straighter and started talking, "Lady Selene informed me that Zeus' master-bolt is missing. Presumably stolen. What news have your sources given to you?"

Hestia looked at Misty with a measuring gaze. Softly, she asked, "Tell me, Misty, how do you think I gather the information I provide to the Order of the Waves?"

"You are the goddess of family. But also the goddess of the hearth. Lady Selene told me that your spirit is joined with the hearth and you could move from one to the other with ease whenever you are called. So I presume, you might also have some way of listening in on conversations that happen around your hearth." Misty looked at Hestia after her answer to gauge her reaction. A stoic, yet not bereft of warmth, face met hers.

"Don't you think it would be really ignorant of people to not notice a blazing fireplace when they discuss anything that they do not want outside ears to notice? Do you really consider a majority of the celestials so ignorant? After all, it is but a common and well-known fact that I am the Goddess of the Hearth."

Misty thought about what Hestia said. It was true that everyone knew that Hestia was the goddess of the hearth. It was a fact so common that even the mortal books had it in them. And her being the sister of five Elder Olympians would mean that almost everyone who heard of the tale of Zeus' rebellion against Kronos would hear of her too. But there was one thing that separated most people from the Sentinels. And, more importantly, her.

"It is true that most people, if not all, are aware of the fact that you tend to the flames in the hearth," she began with a firm voice, "but most people also have very shallow conceptions about power. They tend to notice only what is put in front of their eyes, and disregard that which they cannot see no matter how feasible it would be."

"The minor gods and other immortals fear and respect the Olympians not because they were the race of celestials that defeated the Titans. They fear and respect them because they sit upon the council that rules Olympus. Zeus is feared and respected not because of his prowess over the skies or lightning, but because he wields the lightning bolt and sits upon the throne at the top of Mount Olympus. The same people disregard you and many other powers because you do not have a seat upon the council, and neither do you hold any domains that make you fearsome. They tend to disregard power when it is subtle."

"Which is why even though most people know that you are the goddess of the hearth, they do not think that you are a threat to them. They would have a hard time believing the fact that you could spy upon them from within the warmth of the hearth. They forget that you too are an Elder Olympian and that you too held a seat upon the Council before the children of Zeus were given your seat. To them, the power which cannot be presented is not power. A foolish philosophy if you ask me. The kind that gets you thrown to Tartarus."

Hestia smiled warmly and nodded at the smart Sentinel sitting in front of her. She had her reservations about speaking of everything that she knew to the, obviously, green-behind-the-ears warrior. She did not doubt Selene's mentorship. They had been fast friends even after the original Selene had died and the "spectre" had been banished from Olympus and effectively put under house arrest. They had spoken at length after that and Hestia had realized that whatever magic Selene had weaved before her death had worked and the newly born goddess that sat in her seat in the Sanctuary now was just as smart and capable as she, if a bit lacking in overall strength. But that was no cause to cut ties with her. After all, the game they played relied on subtlety and subterfuge. As long as Pseudo-Selene could train the Sentinels effectively, Hestia would treat with her just as if she was the original Selene. However, when she had heard of her decision to send out a fresh recruit to battle what looked like The Second Titanomachy, she had been doubtful. Not of her prowess in battle but how she smart the new recruit was.

Her doubts had been removed by Misty who had displayed to her that she knew what the price of subtlety was. Hestia could now only hope that the young Sentinel also had enough insight to use that same subtlety to her benefit instead of charging in wildly to save the day. She did want the death of a Sentinel on her conscience; she would be the one responsible since she shared her findings.

Taking a deep breath Hestia spoke, "It was the Night of the Winter Solstice when it happened. The throne room had been vacated after a council meeting. The demigods and other nature spirits that were visiting the council had already left. You must understand that these council meetings are less like civilized debates and more like intimidation games where the god who can grunt the loudest gets what he wants. And as it stands, the loudest grunts are heard when there are divine weapons present."

"So most of them brought theirs to the meeting. The meeting was about something that Demeter brought up. She wanted her daughter back early from the Underworld. Because of that, and the Winter Solstice, Hades was also present in the room that day as a temporary council member. When the meeting ended and all the gods retired to eat some food, they left their weapons and effects near their thrones. I was still tending to the flames at that point since I knew how bad the food served at Olympus' canteen is," Hestia said.

"I was sitting there by myself when the thieves came in. There were four of them and they had a scent on them that told me that they were Hermes' spawn. I watched as they entered the room and made their way to the master-bolt lying on Zeus' throne. They were disabling the meagre protections that Zeus had laid around his throne when one of them spotted me. They erected a field around themselves that hid them from me for a while. While I could have broken past that field if I wanted to, I did not."

"It was imperative that we find out whom they were working for. This was not unlike one of those times when Selene would lay out bait to catch other enemies of Olympus. I shifted from the hearth in the throne room to the one outside, waiting for them to show up."

"To my surprise, they never came out the door. I was suspicious of what was taking place but before I could return to the Throne Room, Zeus returned, found out about his missing bolt and the hostilities were already underway. The other gods had already been sent to recover the bolt and apprehend the thief. I did not tell them about the children of Hermes who broke in. They would have accomplished nothing except slight Hermes and warn off the real ringmasters."

Misty narrowed her eyes. '_Never saw them come out?' _she thought to herself. '_Does this reek of a crime novel to you, Mystery?' _she asked her friend.

The answer came back immediately. _'Something was fishy.' she said and then added with a mental smirk, 'And without Poseidon being involved.'_

While Mystery was cackling inside her head at her own immaturity, Misty looked at Hestia and asked her something that had been bugging her since that morning.

"Aunt Hestia, Lord Hades.. has he been acting weird since the incident? Lady Selene had told me that he was not present during the aftermath of the event and I have been wondering whether there might be a reason behind his disappearance..."

"Do you think that he stole the bolt? Or at least hired the band of Hermes kids to steal it," Hestia asked with narrowed eyes.

Misty shook her head. "Not him. If I did not know of the ones whom you had seen, I might have reasons to doubt it. But I do not believe now that he could be guilty. But I am wondering if there is anything suspicious happening around him which could be related. I have a hunch that he is somehow linked to this whole debacle."

Hestia leaned back on her armchair and steepled her fingers. She shut her amber eyes and thought for a moment. With nothing but the sound of the crackling logs in the background, Misty too leaned back and entered a contemplative state wondering who could be responsible.

After a while, Hestia spoke. "There is one thing..."

Misty leaned towards her.

"You must be aware of how much Hades loves his wife, Persephone. My brother is practically wrapped around her pinky finger. So much that his mood is actually edgier when she is not around. All of us were very heartened to see Hades becoming more sociable to others during winter because of Persephone —except for Demeter. However, Hades was not one to stay away from her wife because of something as simple as the bargain struck between Demeter and him."

"But I thought that Lady Persephone could enter the Underworld in winters? How would she meet Lord Hades otherwise?" questioned Misty.

"Persephone was forbidden from returning to the Underworld," Hestia explained with a twinkle in her eyes, "but nothing was stopping Hades from visiting her. It is a secret not known to many of the Olympians as they consider their brother and uncle to be heartless enough to not miss his beloved wife for six months. However, he often goes up to the surface and meets her behind Demeter's back."

"Okay... but how does that relate to suspicious behaviour?" Misty asked. "Unless he really does not have a heart and showing emotions is suspicious for him?" she added with a raised eyebrow.

Hestia gently laughed and shook her head. "The suspicious part is the fact that despite the many hearths that I have around Olympus and near to where Persephone is, I have yet to see the two meet. Persephone is understandably upset that Hades has not turned up to visit yet. And I do not believe that they are meeting somewhere I cannot see them. Persephone does not have a great poker face and if she was lying, I would catch her immediately."

Misty narrowed her eyes again, something that Mystery remarked had been happening a lot lately. "Working on the assumption that Lady Demeter would obviously be against these secret meetings of theirs, how did Lord Hades manage to keep it a secret over all of these years?" she asked Hestia.

"His divine weapon. The Helm of Darkness," was the answer. "He uses it in battle to strike dread in the hearts of his enemies and paralyze them with it. However, it has many other uses; it is, after all, a divine weapon belonging to an Elder Olympian. One of them is absolute invisibility. The wearer wouldn't even be seen by gods or smelled by the sharpest hellhounds. The only way to find him would be to spread dust around the area to outline his body. He used it to hide from Demeter and meet his wife," Hestia explained. "He's a right romantic, I tell you."

Misty leaned back and mused about what she heard. She had read about the Helm in her studies. It was and maybe is, the greatest mind-based enchantment that there was. Such a great tool also allowed its wearer to hide from the sight of the others. Even hide from other gods and... other goddesses... Her eyes widened and she looked at Hestia with panic. "Aunt Hestia, could it be possible that the Helm was stolen as well?"

Hestia's eyes also widened something which Mystery thought was a dire contrast to the earlier trend of eye-narrowing. Misty, as always, asked her to shut up while trying to not face-palm in front of the goddess.

"It could be possible... The evidence certainly points that way..." she said slowly. She stood up from her seat and clapped her hands. A large book with tons of loose sheets of paper in between materialized on the table. "I am sorry for cutting this short, Misty, but this information is most concerning," she said walking towards the large hearth that was in the centre of the cabin. "First the uprising of the Titans and now the disappearance of not one but two divine weapons belonging to the Elder Olympians... And if these items are not found, then it would lead to a war that would end up ravaging the mortal world and scarring the celestial world enough that the Titanomachy would not face much resistance. I must investigate your claims at once. My brother will listen to me, he still likes his elder sister."

Hestia moved away from the Hearth and stretched her arms on either side of her. In a flash, she transformed from the 40-year-old motherly goddess to a 10-year-old little girl with her auburn hair braided behind her in a single plait. Misty almost wanted to jump over to her and hug her but held herself back, if only barely. She looked at Hestia's new form and walked over with the book in her hands.

"In that book, I have stored my findings of all of the Elder Olympians, the members of the Olympian Council, their relatives, and anyone who could have had a hand in the heist. If they are a threat to the Olympus, their name is in there. I have followed Selene's request and focused more on the activities of Phobos and Deimos, which are very suspicious indeed." Hestia stopped her speech and after another flash, a large stick came to her right hand. "Look through the entire book and ask Selene to take a look through it as well. If what I doubt is true, the theft of the Master-Bolt and the Helm could potentially lead to The Collapse. I know that Selene does not have much sympathy for the rest of the Olympians, but tell her that I requested that she help us out in this matter."

"There are things at stake here which are larger than her fractured ego," she remarked with a grave demeanour.

With that, Hestia jumped into the raging hearth and disappeared. Misty stood there, dumbfounded, wondering how bad things were about to get.

She was also wondering how she was supposed to get back to the Sanctuary.

She let out a sigh and as if by magic (Mystery claimed that she did it) a note materialized in front of her. Upon the browned parchment, Hestia had written in a neat script.

"_Just jump in the fire. It will take you home._

_Yours lovingly,_

_Auntie Hestia._

_P.S There's hot cocoa in the black pitcher if you want any. Sorry I had to leave so soon. Tata!" _

Misty sighed again and moved towards the kitchen.

One does not simply say no to hot cocoa.

* * *

_Date: 00/00/0000_

_Location: SomeWhere in the Middle of NoWhere_

_Time: ∞#∞#∞#∞#_

On a plane of existence that is hidden from the eyes of both mortals and immortals, three faceless entities sit together on a throne made up of yew. Their hands spun around a ball of yarn, weaving a shawl at a speed that could not be fathomed by the human eye. The three sisters Klotho, Lakhesis, Atropos sat on Their throne deciding what the fate of the world would be, even though They knew They had already "decided" what it was going to be. For in the place that They were —or mayhaps where They weren't— was at the same time, everywhen and nowhen. It had all happened here, and at the same time, it had all yet to take place; all the while it still took place as we speak.

They carried on with Their jobs, unaware of the tiny branches growing from their throne, unaware of the yew berries that fell upon the floor, unaware of the leaves that dried up and died on the self-same branches, unaware of everything but **it**.

With a deft hand, Klotho used the two needles in Her hands to spin the fabric into existence, and in some cases, spin lives out of existence, Lakhesis used Her wrinkled hands to measure out the length of the threads being spun, making seemingly random measurements while her eyes moved over the collective unmoving thread as if they were swarming with life, and Atropos sat at the other edge of the throne, with a silver-golden scissor in Her hand, snapping at bits of thread and cutting it short.

The plane of existence where this happened had no external stimulus present. The three faceless beings, the throne made of a live yew tree, and the rapidly transitioning berries and twigs that grew out from the base of the wooden throne. That was all there was, all that there is, and all that there ever will be.

They had been doing this for time eternal, deciding what direction Fate would carry the mortals in with an almost flawlessly synchronized determination. There had been few times since the beginning of times when the three sisters had not looked eye-to-eye regarding a particular action.

This time, whatever it was, was going to be one such time, whenever it was.

A long grey thread made its way in Klotho's hands. The grey had a small smattering of black in the middle of it. Klotho stopped Her movements. The two sisters noticed it. Lakhesis stared at the thread of smooth silk that She had passed to Her sister scant moments ago. Her eyes came to rest upon the black patch that rested in the centre of it. Taking it in Her hands again, She ran wrinkled fingers over the black spot.

The answers ran through Her mind.

"What do your eyes sense, sister?" Klotho asked.

"Curious. Most curious indeed," She began. "I see darkness where earlier there was light. I hear... coal. And ash. Coal and Ash. And a hint of calcium and carbon... A most intriguing combination."

"It could not be, sister," Atropos interrupted. "It has not been for ages. Not since it last was."

Klotho chuckled. "It was so not many ages ago, sister. Do not speak of it as if it were before many more ages than it were."

Lakhesis' hands left the thread and let it drift back towards Klotho. "I have seen the omens and cannot unsee them. Such is not our way. I say we spin the fabric as it wants to be spun. There is a reason Fate sent this young one our way. Who are we to deny Fate her misery?"

Atropos did not agree. That startled Klotho more than the discovery of the black patch had. "Fate cannot be allowed to run rampant, my dear sisters. There are times that Change must be brought about. Chaos heralds the arrival of Change. Without Change, there can be no Order," Atropos advised. "Were We to bend to Fate yet again, We would be condemning the world, this one and countless others, to another age of Chaos without any Order. Change is inevitable. We cannot thwart it forever. Only delay it."

Klotho knew what was to come. There had been scant few occasions when the sisters disagreed. But whenever they did... the consequences had lasting effects. As one all three rose from Their seats and placed aside Their respective gears.

No sooner had They risen from the throne did it disappear and the plane widened till the limits of it could no longer be perceived. Klotho clasped both Her arms in front of Her and concentrated Her powers to ensure that the damage would be limited to this plane. Other than that, She hoped that a resolution would be reached soon.

A finger on Lakhesis' right arm twitched and a fireball was hurled at Atropos from nowhere. The elder in question blinked Her eyes and out of nowhere, a barrier appeared that absorbed the brunt of the attack. Her own fingers twitched and a million hornets flew towards Lakhesis. A finger snapped and the flying swarm of insects froze in the air and then turned around and the ice-bullets flew back towards Atropos. She literally swatted aside the projectiles and with a stomp of Her foot sent a massive volley of rocks and boulders towards Her sister.

Lakhesis moved out of the way of the speeding rock and answered back with a torrent of boiling water that sped towards the scissor-bearing Atropos. Her sister answered with a torrent of blazing green flames that met the water in the middle and turned it to steam, clouding the entire plane from sight.

Within the murky confines of the plane, a twang of a string was heard and a moment later hundreds of metallic thuds were heard as weapons cluttered to the ground after hitting a ginormous bronze shield. The battle only escalated as thousands of skeletons rose out from the feature-less white "floor" of the plane and started to battle against one other. Volleys of arrows and burning rocks met each other in the air and every other second the sound of a fireball going off was heard. Conjured direwolves were set upon summoned mammoths and both started to tear into the other. Swarms of locusts and wasps flew towards the armies of the opponent to tear apart the very magic that held the skeletons together. Cannons shot everything ranging from iron utensils to grenades. Turrets materialized in the air and shot bolts of plasma at the other and pits of molten lava opened up beneath the feet of soldiers who fought despite missing their skulls.

All throughout the chaos, Klotho kept Her hands clasped in front of her as a golden glow surrounded Her body, keeping the destruction confined to this plane.

Escalating the battle further, Lakhesis grew in size and glowing blue armour-plates enveloped Her form. Matching Her sister's moves with Her own, Atropos summoned an ethereal image of a gigantic bipedal hawk around Her form to battle Her sister's avatar The two giants dashed towards the other as the soldiers and animals brought to this plane earlier were trampled upon regardless of whose side they fought on. The two manic avatars met in a grapple hold and started pushing for dominance.

The hawk's eyes glowed gold and a blast of concussive force rained down on Lakhesis' armoured samurai. The armour glowed brighter and suddenly the hawk avatar found its feet covered in burning oil as it lost its footing. Both warriors glowed again in an attempt to defeat the other.

Klotho seeing what was coming squeezed Her eyes shut and clenched every muscle in Her current body as Her hands started radiating a blinding light which spread all over the plane they were in.

The light had stretched beyond infinity and had penetrated the borders of the surrounding planes when it happened. Lakhesis abandoned Her warrior avatar and shifted to Her strongest form.

A black hole abruptly formed where She had stood and started sucking in everything that it could. Not to let Her sister's move go unanswered, Atropos replied in kind by switching to Her strongest form. A massive six-dimensional mass of shapeless matter formed in front of the black hole. It started radiating enough energy that its edges began bleeding in colours unseen by the human eyes. The black hole slowly started to shrink as it got sucked in by the mass instead of sucking it in.

An eternity passed as Klotho held the fabric of reality from collapsing in the plane that they were. The battle had kept on as it were with both sides gaining the upper ground for a while before losing it to the other side. But finally, Atropos' 6-D form managed to subdue the blackhole and won the battle.

Atropos and Lakhesis reverted back to Their original human form, looking as energetic and collected as if They had not just strained the fabric of reality by transcending Their material forms and transitioning to Their True Forms. However, whereas before Lakhesis was in the form of an elderly hag, now she stood in the form of an 8-year-old girl with a pout on her face while Atropos, still in her old lady form, was pinching her cheeks as old people are wont to do. Lakhesis smiled at Her sister and conceded Her defeat. Both looked at Klotho who struggled to hold the plane together and giving Her a nod flashed out of the plane. Just as it collapsed under its own weight and shifted itself into oblivion.

They met back in a similar plane and sat down upon Their throne of Yew. In the new endless expanse of white, the sisters resumed Their task of weaving the fates of mortals. They came back upon the patch of black that was within the silver-grey thread. Atropos cut the black part out of the thread and with a flourish of her fingers and intoned, **'Reform'** , the two edges of the silver-grey thread joined back together. Klotho resumed her knitting with the now edited string. An hour passed in Earth's time and finally, Atropos snapped the string off as the shawl was completed. Lakhesis held it up for their sisters to see plainly and both were clearly satisfied with the result of Their work.

Lakhesis floated the shawl away from them and it disappeared only to hang itself in a room surrounded by many such items of clothing. Placing itself between a yellow-black hoodie that depicted the First Rise of the Giants and an extra-large white cap that showed Zeus bedding a mortal woman as an anteater, the shawl rested. Its surface portrayed the Second Titanomachy being played out on a plot of grey. Standing amidst the turmoil was a raven-haired green-eyed boy dressed in the orange of Camp Half-Blood standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a raven-haired blue-eyed girl garbed in silver and black Sentinel robes.

And the world burned around them.

* * *

**A/N: 1. If it wasn't obvious earlier, things are going to be very AU. And it has already begun. I always found it weird how a single demigod could steal two divine weapons from the Throne Room. No matter how crafty he is. So now there is a entire crew doing the job. And they even took care of Hestia.**

**2\. I have slightly tweaked what the lightning bolt does using my writer's license.**

**3\. Ares is still a dick in this story. However, I have not made him overly stupid and/or cruel in this one. He just has an ego the size of the Empire State Building. And it is being used against him. Luke tried to rally him to the side of the Titans but it didn't work so the "mysterious black mist" wiped his mind and made Luke use a different strategy. And with enough persuasion, Ares was under their spell. The "mysterious black mist" is a secret. It is not Kronos.**

**4\. Hestia is an underappreciated character and she will be having a much stronger role in this fic. But she is not going to be paired off with Mystery/Misty! Don't consider this a Hestia-romance fic! It is not!**

**5\. The Fates or the Morai are the three goddesses. Fate is an idea. In this fic, they take their cues from Fate but sometimes they rebel against its choices for the greater good. This is one such time. What it means to have that black patch cut out of the silver thread will be revealed later. Or maybe not.**

**6\. Selene calls Hades a geek. Trust me, not a mistake. They have a special relationship. And no, it is not what you think it is. The first person to correctly guess what their relation is will get a cookie!**

**That's it! Review! I NEED THEM! THEY ARE PRECIOUS TO ME!**

**until next time.**


	7. Strike One

**AUTHOR'S NOTE****: Thought I had finally given up? Think again! Cause I did not! I was just late! Late by a week and some more days... For which I apologize. I recently started watching Critical Role and have been distracted because of it a lot. It is really addicting and I am hardly on episode 10 now! But still... A week and some more days is way better than going missing for six months... which I count as an absolute win! So go on ahead and enjoy your latest update!**

**And don't forget to review!**

**EDIT 12/08/20: Corrected a few spelling errors I overlooked. Nothing else. **

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Uncle Rick does. I simply use it as a sandbox for a non-profit fan fiction that few humble souls read on this esteemed website.**

* * *

**Strike One**

* * *

"Normal Dialogue"

_'Mental Conversations/Thinking'_

**'Magic Speak'**

* * *

_Date: 22__nd__ May 2005_

_Location: The Sanctuary_

_Time: 0800 hours_

Amongst the many passageways of the Sanctuary, the place that Selene and the Order called home, there lied a seemingly empty room which was often used for holding a meeting. The room, bereft of any dark corners and under the protection of seven different privacy wards, was bathed in the light that Selene had summoned at the ceiling. Within the room was a table, two chairs, an immortal old lady with a bone to pick with just about the entire world, a young lady with a body that was modified to work at superhuman capacity, a pervert with an unhinged mind and a thing for the goddess of the hearth, and a big brown leather-bound book which was the reason behind the tension that the air was reeking of. Just another average day in the life of a Sentinel.

"That **is** concerning," Misty said, for the third time.

"For the time being," Selene conceded. She wasn't concerned.

"What are we going to do about it," Misty asked. They had read the book cover to cover after Hestia had given it to them yesterday. Misty only needed four hours of sleep and had stayed awake till 2 o'clock in the morning to help Selene go through the accounts.

"What do you know about prophecies," Selene inquired.

When Selene wanted to send Misty on a task with a specific objective, she often began with a question. Or at least that was Misty's observation after these few months. More often than not, the topic was one that had been taught to Misty a few weeks past. Occasionally there were questions from the books which she often borrowed from the library/archives. This one had been the topic of a discussion they had on the night they returned after dealing with Diaz. It was a topic that she hated.

"Prophecies are predictions of the future done through the help of a medium. These snippets from the future come through to our plane when the fabric of Fate is temporarily opened," she recited from memory. The lines in question were from a book written by the past host of the Oracle of Delphi. "Often they are a summarized version of the adventure or quest in the form of a verse. The Fates weave the destinies of the mortal world and some times the destiny they make calls for a prophecy through an Oracle or other media."

"Personally, I think they are a load of hogwash," Misty finished.

"Why would that be?" Selene asked as she often did.

"One word for you," Misty snorted. "Diaz."

Selene nodded in understanding. After the drug hustler had almost died in his car from the curse laid on him, Misty had proposed leaving him there, after knocking out the driver. However, Selene had pointed at the picture at the top of the dossier. The one of him lying in his office with a bullet hole in his head.

"There can only be two kinds of prophecies," Misty began. "The kind that a group of people try to fulfil. They try their best to interpret the meaning of the words and plan accordingly to make sure that their actions lead to the correct solution. The other kind of prophecy is the one where regardless of what people do with regards to it, the world will bend over itself to ensure that the prophecy comes true."

"So every prophecy comes true in the end," she argued. "If you do _something_ about it, you support it and thus lead to its climax. If you do _nothing_ about it, then it turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy and things will happen so it is true at the end. If you try to _prevent_ it from coming to fruition, then you will enter a deep pile of shit that will not dissolve till the prophecy has satiated its lust by bending the world over and spanking it till it is red instead of blue," she said_. _"Like the time I carried a fat guy up 20 floors because he couldn't have died in his car and then sat him in his chair and shot him. A self-fulfilling prediction? Or one that I fulfilled? Nobody knows. And nobody ever will. Because apparently there is only one way it will go."

Misty's words were full of venom despite her attempts at coming to terms with the whole concept of prophecy. Selene knew why her Sentinel had a deep hatred for prophecies. Misty hated the fact that there existed a force in the world that could _force_ her to obey its bidding. Regardless of what she wished. The blue-eyed recruit had a rebellious streak a mile wide. Selene had known that in the first few weeks of training after trying to act like her master had led to an increase in her cheeky displays of what she preferred to call "accidents". She had learned soon after that incident and had taken to treating the Sentinel as a friend whom she mentored for fun rather than a student. The Sentinel reacted much better when the orders came with explanations and requests.

The Olympians would have banished anyone who dared show cheek as Misty did, Selene knew that very well. She also knew of how stupid the Olympians were and had a much greater experience in dealing with teenagers and knew that being harder on her would do nothing more than lose her the only Sentinel she had. She knew she could have pushed in the right places to turn Misty into a subservient soldier given enough time. She was confident in her ability to do so. But she knew not to resort to the cane when the carrot worked just as well.

They had been forced to carry Diaz up 20 floors and then fake a suicide to ensure no complications would arise from the prediction not being fulfilled by them. Selene had told Misty that the three Fates did not take kindly to attempts at subverting their authority and would see Diaz dead in his room with a bullet in his head regardless of what they did. But how badly they screwed the Order of the Waves over in the process was entirely up to them. And so they had carried him up under the guise of an invisibility spell. And killed him such that no one would suspect anything but suicide. The thugs who had turned collateral in the conflict were put in a crate bound for Australia.

The entire episode had left Misty with a foul taste in her mouth. She had read all she could on prophecies and predicting the future in the small time that she could. And she did not like any of it. Her rebellious streak had flared again and Selene was pretty sure that she would not rest till she eventually broke a prophecy or did something that was against a prediction. Selene decided not to stop her since she knew enough to know that events would _always_ lead to the fulfilment of the prophecy. '_And if Misty does succeed,_' a small part of her thought, '_it would be all the more fun to rub it in Phoebe's face the next time she meets me._'

"You will be glad to know then that there is a prophecy about to get out now," Selene told Misty. "Perhaps this will be your time to prove it false."

"What is it," Misty asked.

"I know not yet. I have word that the son of Poseidon is making waves in the mortal realm. He will be forced to seek sanctuary in the camp soon."

"Do you believe there will be a prophecy waiting for him at that camp?"

Selene nodded. The only way the war could stop was if the lightning bolt was returned to Zeus and Poseidon's honour was restored. That could be done if a demigod, looking to be the yet undiscovered son of Poseidon, would return it and prove that Poseidon did not steal it.

"Okay...I hope we are not going to sit this one out," Misty asked. She was referring to what they had read in the leather tome.

"No, we are not." Selene did not wish to speak these words so soon but it seemed that perhaps it was time she did speak them.

"Good. What are my orders?"

_"Para Bellum."_

* * *

_22__nd__ May 2005 _

_The Sanctuary_

_1700 hours_

It was time to go.

Selene had been dreading this day ever since her youngest Sentinel had returned back from Hestia's realm with the book in her hands. The book had shed light on many things that night. Many of which had to be dealt with immediately. Which was why Misty was preparing herself for the perilous journey that lay ahead of her.

The Sentinel in question strapped a set of celestial bronze daggers to her wrists and tightened the harness once again to ensure they did not slip out while travelling. She looked back at her mentor and gave her a reassuring smile. Selene smiled back for there was little else she could do. She still believed that Misty was woefully under-prepared for the journey that she was about to undertake.

Taking on organized crime in the mortal realm was woefully easy for anyone who trained under her. She would even let them do it to blow off some steam if it did not irk the Fates so much. But Misty was still weak in many ways and still had a very limited repertoire of skills with her, many of them unbalanced. But she had insisted that they deal with this particular threat instead of sitting around and waiting for the lightning bolt to be found so the gods could take action properly.

The threat of war loomed over Olympus and the rest of the western world ever since the lightning bolt was stolen. Many of the gods would have no choice but to choose between Zeus or Poseidon and join the fight. If things had been different, she could have tried calling upon Hades to restore order and calm his brothers... but even he had been duped by the people who stole the bolt and he too believed that Poseidon or Zeus was responsible for it. There would be no help from him.

Seeing the threat of war looming over them and the chaos it had brought about, several of the minor gods had started breaking the rules of engagement with the mortals. That in itself was not a concerning issue. Many succumbed to greed over the years and felt they could get away with getting more powers for themselves by directly interfering with the mortal realm.

The threat this time was that all the gods breaking the Law were affiliated with Ares. And other reports coming in from Hestia all pointed in the same direction. The god of war was preparing to take over Olympus by defeating his Father and Uncle in this war.

Selene had told Misty how the Order did not concern itself with _who_ ruled over the celestial realm. They only concerned themselves with ensuring that the Divide was maintained. Ares winning the war would have obvious complications with their aim yet it was nothing to be so concerned of that they involve themselves such. However, Ares was amassing his strength by ordering his hirelings to go about and wreak havoc in the mortal realm.

Misty believed that was an infringement of the Law and they had to retaliate as was mandated when the Order was first established. She believed that the gods who had once tasted the power of millions of mortals feeling dread, suffering, sorrow, hatred, anger, and all the other destructive emotions, would not be willing to give that power up easily. She believed it was time to take action.

Selene knew very well that Misty still had a lot of sympathies left for the mortal realm. A link to her previous home which had not yet broken. And her actions were as much a result of these feelings as they were of the Law she wanted to follow. She may not have loved the place when she lived there but she still had people she once considered her own. She might be willing to leave them behind to embrace her role as a Sentinel but she was not yet ready to treat the mortal realm with the apathy that she had to.

All fresh Sentinels were made to, over the first four years, slowly detach themselves from the mortal realm; or the celestial realm if they were part divine. Emotions would hinder them in times of duress. All decisions are to be made with a clear mind.

However, Misty was not yet ready to accept that. Together with her accelerated learning program to prepare her for dealing with most minor threats —and after a few years, and enough training, perhaps for dealing with the Titan uprising— the modified training she received had no time for desensitizing her to the mortal realm.

Now those feelings had acted and convinced Misty that they must act now before the godlings got too powerful to stop. Selene knew she was correct if only partly. Ares mainly affiliated himself with other gods with destructive domains. There were few if any gods under his banner who would be subjugating the mortal realm with peace and beauty. Fear, Dread, Terror, Hatred, Bloodlust, Lust, Greed, and many others stood by him, granting him greater strength even as they got stronger. If the war was to be resolved quickly enough for the gods to prepare themselves in time for the Titanomachy, Selene had to ensure that the war would end as quickly as possible; if she could not completely prevent it.

She did not put much faith into the prophesied demigod who was supposed to follow the prophecy of the Oracle to retrieve the bolt and bring about peace. That path left too much to chance. She needed some safeguards in place just in case. The Order always had a backup plan for their backup plans. And so Selene granted Misty permission to go out; if grudgingly.

But Misty was to face gods on this quest of hers. And that was no minor deed. Had she been with Selene for another year, Selene would have had no qualms about her facing gods like she was about to. Her training along with Mystery's spirit would have granted the young sentinel enough skill and power to face them and beat them effortlessly. As it was at the moment, Selene did not know what would happen if Misty had to face them in a straight battle. The victor would be decided by a coin toss. She could only hope her Sentinel came back with all her limbs intact.

Still, as she watched her Sentinel tighten the straps on her armour, Selene thought that perhaps she might just escape unscathed. Mystery was taught to not be seen by anyone so she could be the perfect assassin. If Misty would heed the advice of her friend and companion, perhaps a conflict would not arise at all. And if it did, Misty had clear instructions from Selene to escape as quickly as she could. Her crafty attitude and cunning was her greatest asset at the moment, something many of the gods did not have due to generations of inbreeding and lying dormant in their palaces in Olympus. Few, like Artemis, still moved about the world seeking the danger that kept their minds sharp and ready for battle. The ones she was about to face certainly did not.

Lady Moon took a deep breath and steadied her voice as she spoke to her student.

"Are you prepared for the journey, Sentinel?" she asked.

Sheathing a short sword made from imperial gold at her side, Misty nodded. No more words needed to be said.

She was wearing the traditional armour of the Sentinels. It had been passed down through time to all the members of the Order when they prepared to live for their first great quest. There were more like it lying unused in the vaults under the Sanctuary; waiting for the Order to have more than one Sentinel again.

Prometheus crafted them himself from the hide of a Nemean Lion. It could not be pierced by mortal weapons. Nor by any normal celestial bronze blade. Only the celestial weapons wielded by gods could come close to scratching it. Tissues from the body of a living hydra —they kept the beast imprisoned so the magical properties of the material would not cease to work— were used to line the joints. They would grow back together even after being torn and moved to fit the wearer to optimize movement and comfort even while providing safety. The hood had a charm cast upon it which would hide her identity from anyone who did not already know it. The armour covered all her vital points and also provided protection to her thighs and upper arms. Leather breeches covered her pale legs and knee-length boots, blessed at the temple of Hermes before being dipped in the waters of the Aeolus' sacred pool. They would serve to help Misty move like the wind itself. Gloves and bracers made by Hephaestus to grant a strong grip on anything they held. They would help her not get disarmed by anyone more skilled than her. Selene had followed Misty's instructions and dyed the entire set a dark black. It would stand out during the day but Misty assured her that she would travel in the night. To prevent any problems, Selene had moved to the vaults and brought out one of the cloaks enchanted by a past sentinel. It would help the wearer blend in with the surroundings. It wasn't as perfect as an invisibility spell but since Misty was bad at casting it anyways, Selene had gifted her the Cloak of Disillusion as a precaution.

If all attempts at stealth and escape failed, Misty carried ample weapons to help her turn the tide of the battle by herself. A short sword made from imperial gold and two stilettos of celestial bronze served as her primary weapons. In a satchel hanging at her hip were throwing knives made out of Celestial Bronze, Imperial Gold, and even mortal steel if the need to fight any mortals arose.

Misty had wanted to carry one of the black blades of Stygian Iron whilst she was choosing her weapons but Selene had wisely advised her how only those with a strong connection to the Underworld could wield those weapons. They were mainly reserved for Sentinels who were born of any of the gods who resided in the underworld and since they hadn't had any since a few generations, they had laid there idle. Misty had still wanted to take one but Selene had quickly admonished her and moved her away from there. The Sentinel was drawn to anything black in colour but that was no reason for her to die just to wield the Stygian Iron weapons.

Selene had enchanted her wrist bracer to turn into a shield made of Athenian Silver. A rare metal that only Athena held the key to preparing. Selene had traded enough of it in the past that she could fashion the necessary gear for any Sentinel who needed it. Athenian Silver was extremely dense while being light and could easily glance off any weapon that was aimed at it. The metal could also permanently burn the skin of werewolves and other creatures that reacted badly to silver but since Misty had no need of any more primary weapons for the moment and had a low chance of coming across any werewolves, Selene had not given her a blade made out of it. The shield would work just as well when bashed against them. The other bracer she had enchanted to summon weapons placed inside her satchels and shoot them outwards. That was a gift to Misty when she had reached the first milestone of her training; defeating a Hydra without using an open flame —a spawn of the ancient monster that they kept confined to make use of in the armour. If all that could go wrong went wrong, Misty held an Imperial Gold explosive. Rigged to shower the area with Greek Fire and shards of Imperial Gold. But hopefully, she would be able to escape without it.

There was one more weapon Misty had yet to receive. Misty would receive it on the day she came back from her first quest. That day she would become a proven sentinel and given the right to freely move out of the Sanctuary and into the mortal or celestial realm. It was a tradition close to Selene's heart and she dearly hoped that Misty came back from her quest safely to receive the weapon. But for now...

Selene had done all that could be done to ensure her victory. She could not follow her in this. Without the Ritual Room to grant her spirit energy, she was limited in what she could do once she escaped the Sanctuary. Looping the wards on themselves so she could escape took a lot of power out of her. If she went with her, she would be nothing more than a liability. She _did _know how to defend herself and fight, being on par with Artemis during her prime. But now she had limited time before she had to return to the Sanctuary. And making these trips so often would not be efficient or beneficial. Misty had to do it alone. It was her duty as a Sentinel.

"State your objectives," Selene said.

"Locate production facilities responsible for the celestial drugs and goods that are being circulated in the mortal realm as we speak. Destroy any backup stock they possess. Destroy the facility, the raw materials stored, and any resisting personnel. Find what alchemical components are being used for the production of each product and bring back a sample for you to prepare an antidote against. Finally, administer an air-borne agent carrying the antidote in it in the respective localities," Misty answered. Her eyes were sharp and held none of the mirth and cheek that they usually did. Her jaw was hard set and her raven hair was tied back into a braid. She looked every bit the Sentinel that she should have had she been here for the complete term. Looking at the young lady standing before her Selene felt that mayhaps she had nothing to worry about. Before her stood a warrior waiting to go forth and strike fear into the hearts of the ones who dared defy the Law.

"What protocol will you follow if you face resistance?" asked Selene.

"Mortals are to be handled as needed. Those who do not know what atrocities they commit will get a mind-wipe and be sent back to their homes. Those who are in charge will get their memories taken and compulsed to move to another country away from here. Those actively taking a part in the distribution of these products despite knowing what they did are going to find themselves in a mental asylum, without a tongue and inside a straight-jacket. Those who try to fight back and threaten-slash-use innocent mortals as collateral I can execute without any hesitation. Kill and disintegrate any mythical beasts guarding the places. Ensure they do not escape to a population centre. Gather any rare alchemical and magically potent ingredients they hold within their bodies before they die."

Selene nodded. "What about the divine?"

"Retreat to a safe house and teleport back to the Sanctuary if they are too powerful. Or move onto the next target. Avoid conflict if possible. Try persuasion and intimidation tactics where necessary. When a battle is inevitable, place an emphasis on a quick escape. Incapacitate where I cannot win. Distract and Disorient."

Selene nodded. "Always remember that there was a time when the Order of the Waves stood on a golden pedestal. We used to strike fear in the hearts of our enemies. Some people still remember the prestige that we held. Gods are immortal and have long memories. Most will think twice before trying to lay hands on a Sentinel. Many know how swift and cold our vengeance is. The Olympians might have banished me from Olympus but they still remember the times when a Sentinel trained by me could infiltrate Zeus' bedroom all alone. Use that fear to your advantage. Strike when necessary but always subdue the enemy when you can. You are smart," Selene remarked. "Smarter than you think you are. Use it to your advantage."

"Yes, my lady," Misty said.

"Once you have shut down a facility, the immortals who overtook it will question what happened to it. It is not every day that anyone dares oppose them. They will want to exact vengeance on the ones who dared oppose them as well. The Sentience is a famous artefact. They will recognize it for what it is. Most will retreat when they see it. But Phobos and Deimos are the children of Ares. They will not abandon their father's cause so quickly."

"Orders concerning them, my lady," Misty questioned.

"Finish your primary objective of shutting down production. I have something special planned for them. It will be ready by the time you are back. Disengage if you face them before. We do not need them to know of our intentions."

"Yes, my lady," Misty said. "As you command."

"And remember the most important thing of all." She enveloped the young Sentinel in a bear hug. "Come back alive."

Misty, smothered in her place between two very soft breasts, nodded as best as she could while awkwardly hugging the goddess back.

* * *

_22__nd__ May 2005._

_The Hunter's Moon_

_1800 hours_

The Hunter's Moon was an all-night bar that served both the mortal and the celestial realm. It was one of the many bars, restaurants, cafes, arcades, eateries, hotels, mask shops, antique shops, and other such establishments which connected the mortal realm with The Sanctuary on the realm of Lady Moon. The portal would only work for someone who had already been signed in to the wards. And many of the immortal patrons who had been around for millennia knew this to be an irrefutable fact. They had seen many attempts to breach the portal that was somewhere within the restroom of the bar. Many young maidens cloaked in silver and grey and black bearing the mark of The Order of The Waves had been seen around the bar when they used it to travel around the world.

None tried to stop or fight them when they did. Nobody was stupid enough to try going against a Sentinel within a five-mile radius of anything that bore Selene's rune schemes. The ones who were stupid enough were already a scorch mark on blackened earth. These establishments were often frequented by mortals who had had a brush with the divine and sought comfort against it by mixing in with some friendly satyrs and dryads. The Hunters of Artemis had free access to all parts of the building except the portal. Being a Moon goddess herself, Artemis and her pack of Hunters would often stay the night in one of the Hunter's Moon hotels or motels when they were too far away from the wilderness to camp out or hot on the trail of a monster. This particular bar was situated in the state of New York. In the town of Queensbury.

Misty walked out of the wooden closet in the upstairs bedroom, her clothes and equipment covered with dust. While she took a moment to dust herself off, a barkeep with goat horns on his head rushed upstairs with a dirty rag hanging over his shoulder. Seeing Misty standing in front of the open closet wearing the traditional Sentinel armour, he bowed and said, "The hospitality of the Hunter is yours, my lady."

"I thank you for your hospitality, good satyr. I need a warm meal and packed rations for five days."

"As you wish, my lady. If you will follow me." Seeing Misty nod at him, the satyr began walking down the narrow stairway outside the room. They came out of a door and into the bar proper. The counters had a couple of wet splotches of drinks from the previous customers and some were still in the process of being cleaned as Misty had interrupted the barkeep whilst he was doing it. No customers were sitting at the bar but there was a young man with golden hair and green eyes who was sitting at the corner table with a young nymph. She had amber eyes with wavy auburn hair with bits of grass and twigs braided in her hair. Her skin had a slight imperceptible bluish hue that would go unnoticed by mortal eyes. The two were happily chatting away and flirting with each other unaware of Misty walking in. Another man sat back on his seat with a couple of glasses lying in front of him; all empty. He seemed troubled by something and had more grey in his rust-red hair and lines on his forehead than a man his age should have had. He looked up and upon seeing the barkeep walk in with Misty, waved him over for more drinks. He either did not notice who Misty was in his haze or did not particularly care about it since he did not react except giving her a passing glance.

The barkeep led Misty to one of the cleaner tables and after taking her order, went over to give the drunk man his refill. While waiting for the barkeep to prepare her rations, Misty nudged Mystery to grab her attention.

_'Where are we going first?'_ Mystery asked while yawning.

_'I was thinking we get our rations for the next few days and then leave. Head east to west. Go for the simple ones first and the more guarded ones later when we are about to leave the state.' _Misty replied.

_'Okay. What about creating safe zones for retreats?'_

_'I think we start by creating one in the nearby mountains for New York. It will be easy to lose any trails in the woods there or spring an ambush. And they are not too far away from this bar so it would be easy to make a quick escape,' _Misty explained.

_'Seems functional enough,'_ Mystery said. _'You got the survival kit and the trap-making kit before leaving?'_

_'Yes,' _Misty said simply.

_'Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go and make a temporary base and go and kick some ass!' _Mystery cheered.

_'We are waiting for our food, dumb-ass!'_ Misty answered before blocking out her retort to anger her further.

As she sat there and sniggered to herself, she missed the bartender looking at her with concern on his face.

* * *

An hour later, with her temporary camp set up, Misty boarded a cab and made her way south. After sitting in the cab for close to two hours, she finally arrived at her destination. In the city of Kingston, Misty made her way towards her first quarry of the night after paying the driver with mortal currency and a swipe of the Mist. She walked along the road, keeping away from the pockets of light that the streetlights had created and sneaked around to a large three-floored building. Three circular brick smokeshafts were jutting out of the top of it. The parking lot in front of it had a large truck and a few cars parked in it but was mostly empty. A tall brick wall surrounded it with a heavy black iron gate guarding the only entrance. The security guards patrolling at the gate and around the building were lax in their duties and Misty was past them and at the storage entrance in the blink of an eye.

Misty checked the straps on her shoes again and jumped off the ground, her ritual enhanced body sending her rising 3 meters in the air where she caught onto a narrow ledge and pulled herself on it. She found herself on the wrong side of a window which appeared closed with a small latch on the inside. Removing a small steel knife from her satchel, she passed it through the small gap between the wall and the window and with a flick of her wrist, unhooked the latch. The window opened into a large storage room where piles of boxes were kept ready to be shipped the next morning across the state. She hopped onto the walkway surrounding the room and closed the window behind her. Her nimble feet made no noise as they walked along the catwalks keeping her eyes peeled for anyone. Getting out of the storage area through a stairwell that took her to a small office overlooking the production area, Misty closed her eyes.

_'Slow and steady,'_ Mystery whispered in her head as she began casting the spell.

'_**Dis Velum**_' she whispered aloud and joined her hands in front of her. Holding her breath for a moment, she slowly dragged them apart, almost as if pulling against some force that wanted to keep them together. She opened her eyes a moment later, her hands lining up with the edges of her vision. The area between them parted and several places glowed a soft grey. She turned around and marked off the places which glowed grey as she took in everything. A moment later she walked over to the glass pane that overlooked the production area and found most of the units glowing grey. A large cuboidal container that was on the floor connected to a conveyor belt glowed a bright grey, almost bordering on silver. Finally letting her arms fall back to her sides Misty told her mental roommate that the spell had worked.

_'Too bad I can't do it beyond the basic version,'_ Misty grumbled in her head. _'Would have been a whole lot easier if I could just see which places have traces of divine energy on them currently instead of the whole 12-hour history that I get.'_

_'Don't worry about it,' _Mystery answered back. _'If nothing else, you will get enough practice this month to have an easier time on the next stage. For now, look at the silver lining!' _

_'What silver lining?' _Misty asked.

_'I get to sit here in your head and watch as you go through an entire factory looking for something which might not even be here,' _Mystery explained.

_'One of these days I'm going to really give it to you,'_ Misty grumbled again with a dark undertone to her mental voice.

_'Ooh! What are you going to do? Spank me?' _Mystery said smoothly.

Misty decided to follow her age-old plan of giving her the silent treatment because she knew that the way of a verbal spar was paved with debauchery the kind of which she sadly did not have time for. Much to her chagrin.

She began her area sweep with the desk in the office, looking over every place which had glowed grey. Looking through the office, she found documents detailing the production of the deodorants and perfumes. The factory belonged to a local brand that nobody would inspect too heavily for foreign or illegal reagents. The owners would have free reign of the production floor and anyone who came and threatened them to add certain divine alchemical ingredients inside would be successful without any complications. Along with it were the sales report of the previous month which had been soaring upwards for some strange reason(read as divine munchkinery). Attached within were also the resignation letters of several employees. Most probably the ones who would not do what they were told quietly and had to be silenced some other way. Misty could bet her left index finger that the workers who had "resigned" had also gone missing recently.

She moved across the office going through other documents and objects, mostly useless stuff. In the dustbin, she found a couple of notes that gave vague instructions about item drops, which Misty guessed were locations from where they had to pick up the extra components. Also in the dustbin was a lot of shredded paper. Closing her eyes again, Misty cast a repair spell on it —this one, thankfully, came to her easier than the Detect Divine Trace spell did— and the shredded bits of paper rose up in the air and joined back in the order that they were originally in.

On the papers was a report. Turns out the owner had hired his own people to find out what effects the deodorants and perfumes made with the new formula did. The reports described that the "colourless liquid" they mixed with the regular batch showed no results when tested in the labs. The animals that were tested on stopped moving and within a few hours died. They followed a few people who used the perfumes and noticed the effects on them as well. The ones wearing the perfume had no noticeable change in behaviour. They eventually increased their application of it which pointed to some sort of addictive agent but no other change in behaviour. However, the people who were around these subjects did change their behaviour. These people would often try and linger around the subject for longer and would turn sad when they have to leave their vicinity. The ones with a stronger exposure were even reported crying over it and a few actively tried to change their daily schedule to get closer to the subject. All subconscious changes.

They speculated that the scent of the perfume or deodorant did not have any adverse effect on the wearer but did have some on those that were near them. The scent would start acting as a drug towards them and after adequate exposure (estimated to be five days) they would start getting strange "withdrawal symptoms" when they are separated from that scent for extended periods. A layman who would not have inside knowledge of these events would not notice the connection. However, to the ones investigating the chemical, it was clear that the scent of the products was having a selective effect on the people. They also mentioned how any onlooker would find the victim's new behaviour concerning but would have no ground to consider it a drug addiction. Even the ones who are in the extreme stages and develop an obsession with the subject still act as respectable members of the society; albeit ones that try their best to contribute while staying near the subject going as far as falling in love with them just so they could move in with them. She knew that many immoral humans would even use it to get what would basically be sex slaves or concubines that would be literally addicted to them.

Misty read through the report and placed it in a small sack that she carried. She would send them over to the Sanctuary once she was done here.

Misty looked over the production floor again and surmised that the cuboidal container that showed the highest concentration must have been where it would be mixed in with the normal ingredients. She banished those thoughts from her head for the moment and turned back towards the room. The small bookshelf on the far wall showed a strong reading as well. Reaching it, she transferred the books in it, mostly law and finance, onto the sofa nearby. On the bottom shelf, there was a hollow back which she opened to find a small strongbox in.

She carried it over to the office table and set it down. Thankfully, lock-picking was one of the things they taught at the Sanctuary in case a lock was made of magic-resistant materials (Misty was surprised how many gods had fumbled when brought up against such items). Bringing out a lockpick and a small dagger from her belt, she started rummaging inside the lock's mechanism, slowly locating the pins and raising them until she heard a slight locking sound. A moment later the lid sprung open.

The insides of the box were lined with velvet and styrofoam. Packed gingerly between layers of bubble wrap were two bottles. Transparent. Filled with a clear liquid. Inside a note was folded between them.

"'No more than one drop per batch' -a friend"

'_Hey, Em? Do you know who this friend could be? Any god who matches the criteria?'_ Misty asked her menant.

_'None that immediately click in.. Try checking the liquid. Maybe the component's origins would give us some clues.' _Mystery answered.

Misty uncapped it ever so slightly. A strong stench hit her headfirst.

Her surroundings seemed to slow down and she tightened the cap once more to stop the smell from coming out. Her perception of everything refined until she could feel almost a minute pass before the second hand on the wall clock moved and soon she was feeling like she was swimming in ambrosia. Her body soon started aching from the ambrosia. She felt her heart slow down for some reason and started feeling lightheaded. The pool of ambrosia was feeling like quicksand now.

From somewhere afar, she heard a voice scream at her to flush her system. Recalling Selene's advice, she gathered all her wits and let out an unrestrained burst of spirit energy through her system.

As suddenly as it started, the feeling went away as raw spirit energy burned whatever had entered her system.

"What the fuck was that thing? I haven't read of anything that can slow time down!" Misty said out loud.

'_Time did not slow down, Tee,'_ Mystery answered. _'You did. You were getting really slow. Almost stopped all functions including thinking and circulating your blood.'_

"I was?" she said aloud again, this time to herself rather than Mystery. Breathing in again, she put the vials back in the strongbox and locked it again. She cast a Cushion spell on it. Her own variation which was similar to Feather Fall. She would renew it every few hours so the vials would not break inside while she moved around.

_'What was it? Do you have any idea?' _Misty asked Mystery. She had not yet begun her education in the field of alchemy. And though she had read up on the individual ingredients and their properties, she still had no idea how they tasted or smelled to be able to tell what this was. Even as she asked this question to the spirit in her head, she could feel the smell of the liquid drifting away from her memory. Her nose was simply too sensitive because of the ritual and she picked smells up too quickly and often lost them the same as well when they disappeared. The burst of spirit energy inside her body had purged all of it from her. Even the smell.

_'I have a rough estimation, but I am not certain... I think those are basilisk tears. Either that or siren sweat. But that would not normally cause such a reaction.' _

_'I read about them when I was working on some poisons for one of my targets. The tears of a basilisk are colourless, odourless, and tasteless. However, anyone who smells them before 24 hours have passed will experience a pseudo-petrification of sorts. I think that was what happened to you,' _Mystery explained. _'You were probably getting petrified from the inside out. That would explain why you slowed down so much a few seconds after opening it. And basilisk tears are rare components because making a basilisk cry and then collecting the tears while dodging it is no easy task. Some simply extract the tear glands and use those to produce a few after one dies.' _

_'Alright... If what you think is right, then it is this thing that is causing all the desperation and depression among the people who smell that deodorant. I will send this to Selene so she can start working on a formula to develop an antidote. In the meantime...' _Misty said.

_'We have a factory to burn down.' _Mystery, the ever-eager pyromanic spirit, finished.

Misty went through the office again, gathering any important documents such as the insurance papers and the labour contracts and secured them in her carry sack. The books she replaced with blank scrap replicas that would burn the same way and not raise any suspicions about her presence there. Selene would want to go through them once more to ensure there were no ciphers or key codes within. She found some cash and a bottle of sleeping pills of which she took the former and ignored the latter. She went down to the production floor and looked over all the containers to make sure that no traces of Basilisk Tears (or siren sweat) or some other reactionary alchemical components were left behind. She had to hide under some heavy machinery and hang from the overhead catwalks at several points when the security guards patrolled her way but no events of note took place. After she had done a full sweep of the area, she went into the storage room which was her starting point.

Cutting through the packaging on some of the cardboard boxes revealed two rows of 25 cans of deodorants inside. There were close to 40 boxes inside the room and if each held 50 cans, it put the final count at around 2000 cans to be delivered tomorrow. She had found no other storage space where more could be and decided that these were all that were still in the factory.

She first started taking care of the security guards. A minor illusion spell on them dulled their senses and made it seem as if nothing was wrong. If she slipped a bit while working, it would go right over their heads now as long as she did not fuck up in a loud manner.

Next, she went down into the underground water storage tanks and —after a quick '**Aqua Depulso'** was applied to her body and equipment— using a bit of alteration to make a lot of dirt and rust inside the pipes that led above to the sprinklers. After the pipe was sufficiently clogged, she drilled fine holes in the lower section of the tank so the water would ever so slowly start draining out of the tank but not at a noticeable speed. A few drops of a corrosive acid Selene had given her and the large metal water faucet looked terribly rusted. Another quick detour to the overhead tanks and they were quickly drained as well. The alert system that would usually notify the security of a problem in the overhead tank was quickly disabled and made to look like a case of the wire getting disconnected.

She went down into the production area proper and placed propane tanks at strategic locations for them to explode once the place caught fire. From within the chemical locker, she chose some that her magic scans showed to be extremely inflammable. Those she spread all over the place. Some of it she spilt near a corner which had a lot of scorch marks on it and cigarette butts lying around on the floor. The fire would start from there.

Finally, she went across the place and disabled the fire alarms as best as she could. She finally looked over her work and nodded to herself.

_'Fire it up, Tee!' _Mystery cheered after sensing the nearby chaos. Taking her friend's enthusiastic cries as her cue, Misty went towards the final step. She tripped the fire alarm. Even though it had been silenced, it would still notify the fire department about what was happening here. She snapped her fingers and a spark of fire raced towards the trail of pungent-smelling liquid that was spread all over the floor. With a flash it caught fire. Misty strode out of the burning production room and made her way to the gate guard's cabin.

Sneaking up behind her, she whispered an incantation and smirked as the guard felt her bowels loosening. The guard made to use her radio to signal someone else to cover her post but a deep rumbling sound echoed from her stomach and she ran out of the small cabin towards the outhouse that was placed hugging one of the walls away from the factory. She pressed a button on the console in front of her and the gate locked itself in its place. After throwing away the key to the gate, she walked out of the factory and made her way to a distant tree and climbed it to watch the show as it unfolded in front of her eyes.

As she had predicted, the trail of flammable liquids with small proportions of gasoline she pilfered from the vehicles parked outside caught fire instantly. She had timed it to ensure that there was a huge blind spot in the guards' patrolling schedule to make sure none came upon it till it was too late. The fire would spread out around the factory spreading at a very slow pace. In the time it took her to get rid of the gate guard and make her way to her hiding spot, the entire production floor and the laboratory on the third floor had long tendrils of flame licking it. A tendril had snaked its way under the door of the office to set fire to the curtains and the carpet within. She counted off in her head and as she reached zero, a red fire truck rushed towards the gates and braked hard in front of them. A couple of them walked out of the truck and screamed for the guards to open the gate but no one did.

Hearing the commotion, a few guards patrolling nearby made their way towards the gate. A brief argument regarding the building being on fire and the fire alarm being tripped ensued, during which one of the guards left to find the missing gate guard to get the master key from them and open the gate. As the two men spoke with a gate in between them, the boxes in the storage unit had all caught fire and were in the process of burning.

Misty had a very weak understanding of the more complex spells but she could do the basics over and over again thanks to the Sentience carrying around what was basically a nuclear reactor's worth of spirit energy. Which meant that she could cast the same weak spell a hundred times. Which she had done on the crates inside the storage room to link most of them together using a variation of the ignite spell. Speaking plainly, it made them much more combustible and they would burn better. All of them. Without leaving any crate or bottle intact.

True to her predictions, by the time the guard returned with the master key looking a bit green, a large explosion rocked the building. All the windows shattered and the glass blew outwards. All the propane canisters placed inside were exploding as the fire truck rushed to start calming down the fire. The sprinklers would fail to work since there was no water supply for them. And by the time the firemen had calmed the raging inferno, most of the equipment inside would have turned unsalvageable. The office would face the least destruction and a nice surprise would wait for them within. By the time they found it, Misty would be halfway through her list. The mark of the Sentinels would tell whatever deity that broke the law to not try it again. And she wanted to get through with as many places as she could before the element of surprise was ruined and the enemies were prepared.

But for now, she watched the building go down in flames in the middle of the night with the fire brigade desperately trying to calm it down. All evidence of her presence that she had forgotten would go up in flames. And so would the thousands of cans of corrupted perfume that was responsible for so much agony. Misty knew she had to move south soon to take down another similar but smaller factory but felt some satisfaction as she delivered her first bit of justice as a Sentinel.

_'I made quite a mess, Mystery, didn't I?'_ she asked as she looked at the burning building with satisfaction.

_'That's exactly what you said the last time you were on all fours,' _Mystery said sending a mental smirk her way.

Misty facepalmed through her blushing face for there was little else she could do. Except perhaps jump down from the tree and start making her way south. She still had 87 more locations to take down. And then she thought to herself with another blush, _'Perhaps some punishment once I am done for the night would not be amiss. Don't you agree, Mystery?'_

And with that, she ran off into the moonlit streets with a deer-like grace in her feet. A blush rose on her face as Mystery talked inside her head of all the ways she had to be punished. Repeatedly. Misty sped up.

You don't dally around when a sexy white-haired demigoddess whispers in your ear of all the ways you could have her.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE****:**

**1\. I dropped a hint in the Author's Note in the last chapter about something. Nobody who noticed it commented/reviewed on it. Or maybe nobody noticed it.. Should I scale down the foreshadowing or make it much simpler to understand? I have been doing it since chapter one and it appears that it goes over most people's heads... Regardless, I dropped a much bigger hint in this one(Godzilla sized). Hopefully, someone will catch onto it. First person to write what it is gets a prize!**

**The Phoebe mentioned in the little part about Selene and prophecies is the grandmother of Apollo and Artemis for those who do not know. He's called Phoebus Apollo for a reason.**

**(It means SHINING Apollo. Cause Phoebe shone and later Apollo was given the same pseudonym except in its masculine form. Similarly Artemis came to be known as Phoebe, which is the feminine form of the word. Hence, she is Shining Artemis. Which I find hilarious)**

**I will be taking a lot of liberties with Latin and Greek for the name of the few spells that I do write. So any Latin or Greek majors who find mistakes please forgive me. If you know the correct form of the word and PM me with it, I will change it.**

**4\. I do not live in the USA. And as such I am relying a lot on Google Maps and the general internet for most of the locations that will be shown in the next few chapters. If I made any mistakes while judging the travel time or accuracy of a location, do excuse them. I will be willing to change any minor details as long as they do not interfere with the plot/story too much. So PM me or review down below if you find any problems about that.**

**That's it for today! I will try my best to get the next update here in two week's time! If I don't then... I permit you to stick my picture on a scarecrow and burn it. The story will be mostly on the road for the next few chapters. Our favourite Sentinels(you only know around five so don't you dare tell me that Misty and Mystery aren't your favourite!) will be seen moving around the country doing stuff...**

**What this "stuff" is I won't be telling you. All I will say is that it will get progressively worse each chapter.**

**And for those who wished to see Percy. June 1st is approaching and soon our favourite son of the sea god (no disrespect meant to Tyson fans) will enter Camp Half-Blood. I will finally have a proper way of introducing him into the story without throwing the story down the OP!Percy highway.**

**That's it! Stay safe and R&R!**


End file.
